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The New Pacific 




/Qh^Ui^yk /v^mu /^rcw^ 



RETROSPECTION 



POLITICAL AND PERSONAL 



BY 



HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT 
II 



NEW YORK 

THE BANCROFT COMPANY, Publishers 

1913 



F<S5\ 



Copyright, 1912, by Hubert H. Bancroft 



Electrotyped and printed May, 1912. Reprinted July, August, 1912. 
Revised and reprinted January, 1913. 

Printed in thi United States of Amc^ica 



By Transfer 
Maritime Comm. 

SEP 3 104* 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

EXPANSION AND EMPIRE 

Building of the Republic — The English Colonies — Northwest 

Coast and the Fur Trade — Acquisition of Louisiana and 

California — The Oregon Question — Interoceanic Canal — 

Nicaragua or Panama — The Spanish War — Philippine Islands 

— Imperialism. 

CHAPTER II 

UTOPIAN DREAMS 
Altruistic Ideals — Precept and Practice — Economic Conditions 

— Passion for Proselyting — The Scotch at Darien Isthmus — 
South Sea Bubble — William Penn's Utopia — The Franciscans 
in California — Missionaries in Oregon — The Mormon Eruption 

— Polygamy and Politics — Mormon Exodus to Utah. 

CHAPTER III 
THE SILENT MYSTERY OF THE UNTENANTED PLAINS 

Rise and Trend of Civilization — Expeditions of Vaca, Niza, Coro- 
nado, Parades, and Drake — The Northern Mystery — Conjec- 
tural Geography — Mythical Cities of Cibola and Quivira — 
California an Island — Strait of Anian — Interior of Savage 
Enchantment. 

CHAPTER IV 

MIGRATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT 
Characteristics of the English Colonists — Milestones of Progress 

— The Call Westward — Application of Steam — Historic 
Highways — Turnpikes and Canals — Pathways of the Plains 

— Opening of the Continental Interior — Sutter at Sacramento 

— Sam Brannan and His Saints in California. 



vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER V 
SOME OHIO YANKEES 
Migrations Through the Alleghanies — Settlements in the Ohio and 
Mississippi Valleys — The Licking Land Company — Granville 
Old and New — Personal Affairs — New England Life in Ohio 
— Religion and Education — Abolitionism and Underground 
Railroading — Mid-century Politics in the West. 

CHAPTER VI 

THE CALL OF GOLD 
Marshall and Sutter — Peculiar Conditions Attending Gold Discov- 
ery — Effect on Commerce and Finance — Decadence of His- 
pano-Californians — Ruin of Sutter and Vallejo — Men of Em- 
pire, Not of Money — Effect of Gold Shipments during Civil 
War — Loyalty of California. 

CHAPTER VII 

AN ARTLESS ADVENTURER 
California Coast in 1835 — Personal Experiences — The Voyage in 
1852 — Isthmus Transit — Imperial Panama — Entrepot of 
the Pacific — Land of Romance and Adventure — Expeditions 
Thence — New World Rendezvous — California in the Early 
Fifties — A San Francisco Gambling Palace. 

CHAPTER VIII 

THE PASSING OF THE FRONTIERS 
The Atlantic Frontier Receding Westward — The Pacific Frontier 
Drifting Eastward — The Wilderness Between — Human Rights 
and Human Wrongs — Land Purchase and Indian Pacification — 
Penn's Method — Meeting of the Frontiers — Disappearance of 
the Natives. 

CHAPTER IX 
A NEW LAND AND A NEW PEOPLE 

Economic and Ethnic Combinations — New Americans — Intermin- 
gling of Types — Transmigration and Transformation — Geo- 
graphical Provinces and Types — Migratory Virginians and 
Yankees — The North Pacific Anglo-American — California 
Miner of the Flush Times. 



CONTENTS vii 

CHAPTER X 
THE MILLS OF THE GODS 
People and Events at Yerba Buena Cove — Rise of Justice — 
Hounds or Regulators — Vigilance Committee — Australia 
Criminals and Southern Chivalry — Outbreak of Crime in Mon- 
tana — San Francisco's Grand Tribunal of 1856 — James King 
of William — John Nugent — Justice Terry. 

CHAPTER XI 

THE INTERREGNUM 
The Swing of Time — A Period of Rest — Political Parties — 
Career of Broderick — Mexican Land Titles — Growth of Manu- 
factures — Favorable Economic Conditions — Mining and Agri- 
culture — Gambling in Stocks — Secessionists — Premium on 
Gold — Specific Contract Law. 

CHAPTER XII 

EVOLUTION OF HIGH CRIME 
Mid- Century Finance — The Mexican War — The Civil War — 
Doctrine of Inequality Before the Law — The True Criminal 
Class — Modern Business Ethics — Increase of Wealth — 
Tendency to Moral Obliquity — Influence of Railroads and 
Subsidies — Justice and Journalism — Some of Our Presidents. 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE DARK AGE OF GRAFT 
Epoch in History — Overland Railway — Betrayal of the People 
— Credit Mobilier — Introduction of High Criminality — Eco- 
nomic and Political Domination — Decline of Industries — The 
Great Afraid — Debased Legislation — Civic Debauchery — 
Rule of Schmitz and Ruef — Deliverance. 

CHAPTER XIV 
THE INJUSTICE OF LAW 
Primary Principles — English Law Courts — The Jury System — 
Judicial Skill in Technicalities — The Hollow Power of Prece- 
dent — Judges as Law-Makers — Judges as Law-Breakers — 
The Law as a Fetish — The Judiciary Recall and the People. 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XV 

AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE 
Selfishness of Good Men — Conspiracy for Bad Government — A 
Pair of Pats — Gunpowder and Dynamite in Court Practice — 
Effective Work of Heney and Burns — Strictures of the Preda- 
tory Press — Ruef's Career — The Sowing of the Dragon's Teeth 

— Infelicity of the Bribers — Effect of the Fire of 1906. 

CHAPTER XVI 

COMPARATIVE REPUBLICANISM 
Porfirio Diaz and Benito Juarez — Their Genius and Achievements 

— A Half-Savage Populace — Necessity of Arbitrary Rule — 
Signal Services of Diaz — French Intervention — Defeat of 
Maximilian — Peace and Prosperity — Economic Development 

— Treachery — Ingratitude — Return to Anarchy. 

CHAPTER XVII 

EVOLUTION OF A LIBRARY 
A Fortuitous Undertaking — The Routine of Collecting — The Ter- 
ritory Covered — Expeditions Abroad — Pinart and Petrof in 
Alaska — Historical Dictations — Archives of the Vigilance 
Committees — The Maximilian Collection — Russian Material — 
Archives of Mexico and Spanish America — Special Search in 
Europe. 

CHAPTER XVIII 
METHODS OF WRITING HISTORY 
A Mixed Mass of Material — Classifying and Indexing — Old Meth- 
ods Inadequate — Drilling Assistants for the Work — Extract- 
ing and Arranging the Material — Cooperative Methods Not 
Feasible — Inception of the General Plan — Important Inter- 
views for Filling Gaps — Special Work with Diaz in Mexico — 
Collateral Histories and Dictations. 

CHAPTER XIX 
ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 

First Coming of Chinese — Hearty Welcome with Fair Promises — 
Ill-treatment in the Mines — Eruption of the Sand-Lotters — 
Ireland Sets the Pace — Broken Pledges and Demagogism — 
Imposition and Persecution — The Impossible African. 



CONTENTS ix 

CHAPTER XX 

THE THROES OF LABOR 

Capital as Crystallized Labor — Militant Attitude of Labor — 
Tyrannies of the Industrial Life — Cupidity of Capital — Arbi- 
trary Demands of Labor — Wages, Trusts, Strikes, and Mo- 
nopolies of Industry — The Labor Leaders. 



CHAPTER XXI 

MODERN JOURNALISM 

Impelling Force Behind the Newspaper — Mendacity as Stock in 
Trade — The Great Sunday Edition — As a Teacher of Truth, 
Honesty, Artistic Taste, and Morality — Price of Civic Loyalty 
and Integrity — Charms of Vilification and Scandal. 



CHAPTER XXII 

VAGARIES OF SOCIETY 

Neurotic Temperament of the Idle Rich — Decadence of the Race — 
Sham and Conventionalities — Indifference to Vice — Inter- 
national Marriages — High Crime and High Society — Mental 
and Moral Sterility — Slavery of Fashion. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

WASTE IN EDUCATION 

The Imperative and Ever-Recurring , Need — Waste of Men and 
Spoliation of Women — Present System Detrimental to the 
Higher Rural Life — Overcrowded Professions — Cramped City 
Life — A Little Lesson in Pronunciation — Tainted Men and 
Tainted Money. 

CHAPTER XXIV 

METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 

Our Seraphic Father and the Good God Plutus — Six Great Fires, 
and the Seventh — During the Flush Times — Development of a 
New Society — Law and Lawlessness — Curse of the Labor 
Monopoly — Wanted, Men and Manufactures. 



x CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XXV 

PROGRESSIVE GOVERNMENT 

Significance of the Movement — A Moral Revolution, a New Civiliza- 
tion — Reforms Already Accomplished — Patriotism of Preda- 
tory Wealth — Good Government Ideals — Administration of 
Hiram Johnson — Progressive Movement at Los Angeles — 
A New Reign of Law and Justice. 

CHAPTER XXVI 

GLORIA IN EXCELSIS 

Decadence of the Republic — Base Admixtures of Population — 
Standards of Citizenship — Vital Measures of Reform — Prog- 
ress Made Permanent — Untenable Attitude of the Judiciary — 
Corruption of the Appellate Courts — Referendum and Recall — 
Marvelous Progress. 

CHAPTER XXVII 

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PANAMA CANAL 

The Isthmus in the Olden Time — New Channel of World's Com- 
merce — What the Canal Will Accomplish — Early Efforts to 
Penetrate the Continent — Mythical Waterways — Various 
Routes Considered — Explorations and Surveys — France and 
the United States. 



£«! » . .. . * ., 



RETROSPECTION 



RETROSPECTION 

POLITICAL AND PERSONAL 

CHAPTER I 

EXPANSION AND EMPIRE 

WERE we as ready as were our forefathers to see the 
hand of Providence in the affairs of men, some 
things might be accounted for which now must await 
further accession of wisdom. In our ignorance we might 
ask, for example, what possible connection could there be 
between a Yankee fur-trader on the Northwest Coast of 
America in the year 1792, the federal congress at Philadel- 
phia, and a Corsican adventurer seeking advancement in 
the streets of Paris. Or, again, what could black cannibals 
in the jungles of Africa, or whilom importations thence 
in Georgia and Alabama, or the visit of a future president 
to Florida have to do with the late possessions of the 
king of Spain, or in establishing the southern limits and 
frontage on the Pacific of an Anglo-Saxon commonwealth 
in the wilds of America. And yet, enlightened by wisdom 
from on high, one might answer, It is the Invisible Archi- 
tect of the Republic, his finger pointing out where the 
corner stones shall be laid, corners so wide apart, so utterly 
at variance, that only the eye of omniscience may trace 
the lines of their connection. 

For at the very moment that Robert Gray of Boston 

1 



2 RETROSPECTION 

entered the mouth of the River of the West, giving the 
name of his good ship Columbia to that stream, on the 
Atlantic side the soldiers of the Revolution were clearing 
away the debris after the battle and returning to their 
farms and merchandise, while statesmen were fashioning 
forms of government to meet the requirements of a new 
nation. 

By virtue of the presence of Jacques C artier in the 
Saint Lawrence in 1534, and of the Chevalier de la Salle 
on the Mississippi in 1681, the king of France held Canada 
and the interior of the continent from the great lakes to 
the Mexican gulf, and from the Alleghanies to the Rocky 
mountains. The treaty of Paris in 1763, following the fall 
of Quebec, transferred to England the midcontinent French 
possessions east of the Mississippi, and to the thirteen 
English colonies bordering on the Atlantic was added this 
newly acquired French domain, the whole constituting 
the area of the United States in 1787 as won from England 
by the war of Independence. 

Claims had been preferred by the several colonies each 
to a strip beyond the Appalachian range equal in width to 
its frontage on the ocean, which claims were ceded to the 
federal government. 

Turning to the Pacific, we find thus early agencies at 
work in the Oregon country. Though fortuitous it is none 
the less gratifying that this unsurveyed angle should have 
been so accurately placed by these instruments of destiny 
— men all unconscious of the potential significance of their 
acts — that the unimaginary lines should have been so 
accurately drawn along the same parallels of latitude as to 
place their possessions on the Pacific exactly opposite their 
home on the Atlantic. 

The shipping interests of the colonies had enlarged 
during the period of dependency until their vessels were 
seen in all ports of every sea. Many voyages since Drake's 
visit to California in 1579 had been made to the coast, 
voyages of discovery and trade, notably by Spanish, 



EXPANSION AND EMPIRE 3 

English, and American navigators, each of whom set up 
rights of possession. 

The coastwise fur-trade offered attractions equal to 
those of the forest, and the Northwest was a prolific field. 
Routine was in this wise: New England ships exchanged 
their cargo of Yankee trinkets and more substantial Indian 
goods for the rich peltries of the natives, then sailed away 
for China, where the furs were sold, teas and silks taking 
their place. A successful voyage of two or three years 
was very profitable, the return cargo selling at three to 
five times the original cost. 

Captain Gray was the first New Englander to adven- 
ture a voyage round the world, and it was on that occasion, 
while exploiting the coast southward from Juan de Fuca 
strait, that he came to the great river. 

A score of times the place had been passed by famous 
navigators, but the noble stream had withheld its secret 
until it should be found by an American mariner to be 
given to his country. 

Not without controversy, however, for never were there 
lands so far away or undeveloped that men could not be 
found to fight over them. 

After all other claimants had been eliminated by the 
Nootka convention and other conferences, Russia mean- 
while having relinquished her rights to all lands below 
latitude 54° 40', and Spain having included whatever pre- 
tensions she may have had to the Oregon country in her 
sale of Florida to the United States in 1819, there remained 
as parties in the dispute England and the United States 
only. The territory in question lay between latitudes 42°, 
the northern boundary of California, and 54° 40', the south- 
ern limit of Alaska. 

Each side claimed the whole — a truly diplomatic open- 
ing to a discussion which was to last for half a century 
and become famous in history as the Oregon question. 

The United States cited the New England trading 



4 RETROSPECTION 

vessels on the Northwest Coast since 1784; the discovery 
and naming of the Columbia river by Robert Gray in 1792 ; 
the government expedition of Lewis and Clarke in 1805; 
the appearance of the Astor parties and erection of Fort 
Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia in 1811 ; Williams, 
Henry, and Winship in the mountains and on the Columbia ; 
American missionaries on the Willamette, and free 
trappers and traders elsewhere. 

England brought forward the navigations of Vancou- 
ver and others along the coast; the adventures of David 
Thompson in New Caledonia; the coming of Alexander 
Mackenzie to Bentinck North Arm, and the doings of John 
Stuart and Simon Fraser at Stuart lake and on Fraser 
river. Then throughout the northern interior were the 
British fur-forts of the English Hudson Bay company and 
the Scotch Northwest company, with baronial halls at forts 
Victoria and Vancouver, ruled in state by the chief factors 
Sir James Douglas and John McLoughlin respectively, 
who bowed forth to dinner their Indian wives with all 
the form and circumstance due to princesses of the 
blood. 

The British apparently getting the best of it, our pug- 
nacious patriots sent forth their loudest argument in the 
war cry of " Fifty-four-forty or fight/ ' 

Doubtless some who thus shouted understood it, if not 
the " fifty-four-forty, " at least the " fight." The question 
came up in a cabinet meeting in 1845. President Polk 
favored the popular demand, insisting upon the entire 
territory for the United States, but Buchanan, with more 
regard for the rights of others, was satisfied to divide the 
land at latitude 49°. 

Had our belligerent progenitors won their way we 
should now have a continuous coast line on the Pacific 
side of four thousand miles; as it is the break is but five 
hundred miles, or thereabout, in length. 

In 1803 was effected the purchase of Louisiana, by 



EXPANSION AND EMPIRE 5 

which term was then known all that region lying west of 
the Mississippi to the borders of the Spanish possessions 
and the Oregon territory. It came fortuitously, like most 
of the additions to our domain, and nearly doubled the 
original area of the United States. 

It happened in this way. The island of New Orleans 
in foreign hands had proved an obstruction to American 
commerce, and James Monroe was sent to Paris commis- 
sioned to buy it. He had no thought of purchasing half a 
continent, but only a small lot at the mouth of the 
Mississippi. 

It appears that the Corsican wanted money. European 
rulers generally want money. When informed of Mr. 
Monroe's errand Napoleon saw that so small a transaction, 
if consummated, would not greatly help him. So he said 
to his agent, Marbois, "I need money in France more than 
wild lands in America; get me fifty or a hundred million 
francs and let it all go." 

The price finally agreed upon was fifteen million dol- 
lars. But alas! the pity of it for the Yankee bargain- 
maker, when it might have been had for ten millions, even 
though at the price at which stolen lands were then selling 
it would have been cheap at thirty millions. 

Two army officers, Lewis and Clarke, were detailed to 
examine the new purchase and report. 

They ascended the Missouri to its source, found there- 
about the head- waters of the Columbia, and followed that 
stream to its mouth. 

Andrew Jackson entered Florida at the head of an 
expedition in 1816. Regardless of instructions he seized 
Spanish forts, hanged white men without a trial, slew Sem- 
inoles without quarter, and swore by the Eternal. For 
which piratical proceedings he was hailed a hero and twice 
made president, Spain meanwhile being glad to get five 
millions for the country and throw in Oregon. 

Texas, after gaining independence from Mexico, joined 



6 RETROSPECTION 

the United States confederacy in 1845, the last to be 
received into the union as a slave state. 

After an inglorious war with Mexico in 1848, fifteen 
million dollars was given for the upper California country, 
and ten millions in 1853 for the Gadsden strip, which 
brought the Pacific coast line down to San Diego, and 
included the region contiguous to California back to the 
Rio Grande, thus rounding out the Republic proper as it 
stands to-day. 

Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867 for seven 
millions, or a little more ; the Hawaiian islands applied for 
and received admission in 1898 ; Wake island was acquired 
the same year; part of the Samoa islands in 1900; Porto 
Rico and the Philippines in 1899; and the Panama canal 
zone in 1904. 

Thus fell into place as a compact whole the several 
parts of our commonwealth, from which category we may 
if we choose exclude our Panama possession which was 
obtained for a purpose — as a place it may be for display- 
ing before the world a specimen of American art or 
artifice. 

It came to pass as the century neared its end that 
reflective minds at Washington began to consider the 
exposed position of our Pacific possessions as illustrated 
by the late civil war; also the ever-increasing arrogance 
and the ever-decreasing honesty of the railway magnates 
who usurped the government, and the advantages which 
would accrue from an interoceanic waterway. 

Unfortunately Spain was four hundred years before us 
in securing all the isthmuses. For four hundred years 
there had been talk of utilizing some one of them as a site 
for a canal, and but for Theodore Roosevelt and John Hay 
the talk might have continued for another four hundred 
years. Some day our successors will clear away where 
the sources of three great rivers so conveniently placed in 
juxtaposition straddle the Rocky mountains, the Missouri 



EXPANSION AND EMPIRE 7 

flowing eastward, the Colorado southward, and the Colum- 
bia westward, thence to dig and canalize the whole country. 

The first choice of the United States for a canal site 
after Panama was Nicaragua, the land-cut there being 
less, and the ocean travel between our eastern and western 
shores less by a thousand miles. The French were at 
Panama though they had made overtures to sell. 

Nicaragua was exceedingly solicitous; so further sur- 
veys were made and the cost estimated. The men of 
Managua understood what it signified to their little effer- 
vescent republic — isolation ended, the world brought to 
their door, employment for all their people, a market for 
all their products, and perpetual peace assured under the 
safeguard of a powerful neighbor. 

So the bargain was struck ; Nicaragua was to receive ten 
million dollars for such rights and privileges as were 
necessary for the purpose. The people of the lakes were 
full of joy. 

But how now? Why do the men of Nicaragua pause; 
why do they whisper and look wise? Evidently a thought 
has struck them. There is yet time, they say. The Wash- 
ington people are rich. Having gone so far they surely 
will not withdraw for the matter of another ten millions. 
Ten for us and ten for the country; that were well. Or 
stay, twenty for us and the canal for our country; that 
were better. A little diplomacy and the coup were ac- 
complished — Spanish diplomacy, Sagasta would say, wit 
and wisdom, seasoned or stale, whatever it might be 
Yankeedom had no use for it. 

Loud were the lamentations of the Nicaraguans when 
they learned of their loss, and loud the acclaim of Colombia 
on the approach of the worshipful ten millions. Washing- 
ton refused Managua's appeal for a reconsideration, and 
Bogota promised for the ten millions to grant all that was 
required, while the Frenchmen would be glad to take 
forty millions for their failure. 

The negotiators for this right of way were learning 



8 RETROSPECTION 

fast, if indeed they did not know it before, that Spanish - 
Americans are not conspicuous for truth and reliability in 
their dealings, whether at Managua or Bogota, for after 
meeting the offer of Colombia promptly and fairly they 
found themselves subject to the same backing and filling 
process which had so disgusted them at Managua. 

For here were the same race, the same undisciplined 
cupidity, the same business methods, unstable, unreliable, 
vapid, vain. As at Managua, so argued among themselves 
the men of Bogota. Ten millions and the grand canal 
were good. Twenty millions and the grand canal were 
better, and that sum divided among the Statesmen of 
Bogota would be quite a windfall. 

Turning their back once more upon such ill-advised 
dealings the Washington authorities approached the people 
of Panama and said, "You are a sovereign state and no 
part of a confederacy. You were forced into this Colom- 
bian association by reason of your exposed position and 
lack of resisting force. Declare your independence, as is 
your right ; accept this peripatetic ten millions of ours and 
grant us what we require for our work. We will defend 
you from the United States of Colombia, and cause your 
recognition as an independent state by the powers of 
Europe. ' ' 

And so it was done. There were futile ravings at 
Bogota as there had been at Managua, and threats of war 
and dire destruction, and pleadings withal that the good 
Washington gentlemen would reconsider, would let Pan- 
ama alone and give Colombia the ten millions as before 
contemplated. But all in vain. Colombia was powerless, 
and the United States was well pleased to be rid of so fickle 
and untrustworthy a coadjutor in the great enterprise. 
Not that the Panama people were of different stamp, but 
they were near at hand and could be better managed. 

"I hope in all this," said Senator Hoar, "that there is 
nothing dishonorable." And President Roosevelt replied 
"There is nothing dishonorable." 



EXPANSION AND EMPIRE 9 

Thereupon our people dug in peace, and with far less 
sickness than had been anticipated, owing to the superior 
hygienic conditions established. 

The French spent $250,000,000 on a sea-level canal 72 
feet wide and 29 feet deep, and failed owing to the imprac- 
ticability of the sea-level plan, their extravagant and waste- 
ful methods, the Panama fever, and inadequate control of 
the canal zone. Our canal is 300 feet wide and 41 feet 
deep; the cost is about $400,000,000. It is 50 miles long, 
from a point five miles out in Limon bay on the Atlantic 
side to a point five miles out on the Pacific side. From 
the point on the north — on the Atlantic side, in the sea, five 
miles out — there is a channel, protected by a breakwater 
500 feet wide, that runs eight miles — five miles in the sea 
and three miles in the Gatun dam. 

The Gatun dam is 7,700 feet long, 115 feet high, its 
supports half a mile thick at the bottom, 400 feet thick at 
the water's edge, which is 85 feet above the bottom, and 
rises to a height of 115 feet, with a width of 100 feet at 
the top. That incloses a lake 135 square miles in surface, 
and furnishes a channel 1,000 feet wide for sixteen miles, 
800 feet wide for four miles, 500 feet for four miles and 
until it reaches the Culebra cut. 

The Culebra cut is nine miles long and the canal has 
a depth across the bottom through it of 300 feet. The 
canal is forty-five feet deep through the lake. 

The vessel making this passage is raised by three steps 
of 28^ feet each — three double sets of locks. It is 
raised to the level of the lake 85 feet, and continues on 
that level until it reaches the end of the Culebra cut at 
Pedro Miguel, where it is lowered again 30 feet to a small 
lake through which there is a mile and a half of a channel 
500 feet wide. Then at Miraflores it is lowered again two 
steps of 28 Ms feet into a channel 500 feet wide that goes out 
into the Pacific ocean five miles. It will take three hours 
for a vessel to go up and down the steps and ten to twelve 
hours to go through the canal. 



10 RETROSPECTION 

An achievement when completed to be regarded with 
pride and wonder, pride that we had been enabled so 
cleverly to assist nature, and wonder if Harriman were 
alive how long it would be before he had it in his pocket. 

To the average American mind this rapid expansion 
of domain, trebling itself in half a century, was somewhat 
bewildering. In leaving their European homes to escape 
the tyrannies of despotism or the persecution of fanaticism ; 
in becoming colonists, strangers in a strange land yet sub- 
jects of the ancient rule; in breaking off their fetters 
only to fetter others, the curse of Adam following them to 
the New World; in achieving independence, in spreading 
themselves out though as yet only theoretically over vast 
areas, even from the Atlantic to the Pacific, there had been 
no ambitious thought regarding rulership other than to 
rule themselves wisely and in a God-fearing manner; no 
thought of dominion over others, of protectorates, or depen- 
dencies, or subservient states; no thought of empire or 
imperialism if indeed such words had any significance with 
them. 

The true American people do not and never did covet 
their neighbors' lands, that is to say further than such as 
they could take from the natives. Early statesmen on the 
floor of congress "thanked God for the Rocky mountain 
barrier which placed a limit to man's ambition." We do 
not want Canada or Mexico. As slavery is a thing of the 
past no more territory is demanded by the south for slave- 
holding purposes. There are always at hand political 
filibusters ready for any action that will bring to them 
personal advantage. There may have been men high in 
office whose ardent imaginations were fired by thoughts of 
universal rule, as vast acquisitions were added to an already 
widely extended domain, but these were not the American 
people. 

By yet others, then as now, the cry of imperialism, or 
its equivalent was raised and reiterated upon every fresh 



EXPANSION AND EMPIRE 11 

acquisition, for opinion has been and is divided as to the 
wisdom of expansion, though where proper republicanism 
ends and improper imperialism begins it would be difficult 
for any one of them to say. 

An anti-imperialist league was organized in Boston which 
manifested a lack of confidence in President Taft, and in 
his Philippine policy. They seemed to suspect the govern- 
ment of sinister designs in regard to the islands; although 
acting at present in apparent good faith, and notwith- 
standing the prompt fulfillment of our promise with regard 
to Cuba, they feared that politicians and capitalists were 
so shaping the laws and absorbing the natural wealth of 
the Philippine country as to render rehabilitation at any 
time impracticable. And this, although the people of the 
United States are opposed to what they call imperialism. 

They claimed that the Filipinos had already demon- 
strated their capacity for self-government by organizing 
political parties, legislative assemblies, appointing officials, 
and employing all the paraphernalia of popular govern- 
ment. They deprecated the disposal of lands and the 
introduction, under the Taft policy, of foreign capital, 
which acts as a menace rather than as a benefit. Their 
arguments from false premises were otherwise somewhat 
strained, as the fact remains that in the midst of internal 
jealousy and external rapacity the native islanders are in 
no condition to exercise successful self-rule. And there 
is no reason after our Cuban benefactions for distrusting 
the American people. 

What evidence the Filipinos have given of their ca- 
pacity for self-government it would be difficult to say. By 
far the greater part of them are but little better than 
savages, knowing no civilized people, speaking no civil- 
ized language, and thinking no civilized thoughts. They 
are far behind the Cubans in intelligence and education, 
yet the Cubans made a failure of their first attempt at 
self-government. 

What would they, these good people of Boston ? Would 



12 RETROSPECTION 

they have had us leave Spain alone, leave alone Weyler, 
"the wickedest man on earth," to grind the Cubans into 
the dust, to tear them from their homes, gather them into 
droves and herd them in city suburbs to die of starvation 
and disease, all of them whom he had not already shot or 
imprisoned ? Would they see the dogs in their streets thus 
treated and not put forth a restraining hand? Was it a 
coterie of sentimentalists who thus felt for the Cubans, or 
was it a protest from the great heart of humanity that 
compelled President McKinley to put an end to the 
iniquity after he had repeatedly begged Congress for a 
little more time in which if possible to avert war? 

Compelled at last to act, not by party politicians or any 
special interests but by the noble impulses of the American 
people, he played the part of a true soldier and acted with 
promptness and vigor. And the fateful words once wired 
to Admiral Dewey, "Capture or destroy the Spanish 
fleet," where has there been a stopping-place from that 
day to this ? When has there been a time that the govern- 
ment of the United States could honorably say "Here we 
will rest;" when it could with decency say to the half or 
wholly savage Filipinos, "Now look out for yourselves," 
leaving them to anarchy at home and the prey of designing 
nations ? 

True, when Dewey had sunk the Spanish fleet in Manila 
bay he might have sailed away and left them, his orders 
obeyed, his task accomplished. Would any of us have had 
it so ? Would not the Spaniards there have pounced upon 
the defenceless natives with greater cruelties than ever, 
pluralizing the horrors of Cuba, were it possible, with ten- 
fold intensity? And for how long would Japan or Ger- 
many have withheld their rapacious hands ? For how long 
would the hungry nations have kept a promise had they 
made one ? Being a man and an American Admiral Dewey 
could not choose but land and plant there his flag, the flag 
of his country, which pledged himself and his government 
to protect this people just let loose from tyranny, to 



EXPANSION AND EMPIRE 13 

protect them from themselves and others. And since then 
I fail to see any time when this government could have 
honorably receded from that position. 

And after the conduct of the United States in thus 
liberating one downtrodden people and protecting another, 
in fulfilling to the uttermost all promises of fair treatment 
and faithful restoration, who shall doubt the integrity of 
this nation in its future dealings with a weaker race 1 Not 
our own people surely, but perhaps the sage Sagasta may, 
he who with broad sarcasm remarked, "It will, indeed, be 
long before the Cubans are capable of self-government if 
the United States waits for that time before giving them 
their freedom." The magnanimity displayed by President 
McKinley and his coadjutors in regard to this and other 
measures attending the Spanish war was utterly beyond 
the comprehension of a Spanish minister of state. 

And this is called imperialism, and lamented as such, 
this putting forth a hand to stop the savage brutalities 
committed at our door by the dilapidated monarchy of an 
effete civilization! 

The star of empire leading westward ; the star of empire 
which we have followed from Holland, from England, 
across the continent, across the Pacific sinks now as we 
approach the threshold of the ancient East, while we find 
ourselves still holding fast to our traditions. 

Many of our people were fearful from the first of the 
results of territorial expansion ; fearful of shoals and ship- 
wreck; bewildered by what seemed to them a limitless 
expanse of land with its responsibilities. Jefferson was 
roundly rated for the purchase of Louisiana as was Seward 
for buying Alaska. 

Said one senator, "If we want to give Russia seven 
millions why give it, and let her keep her frozen mountains, 
icebergs, and glaciers which we can neither sell, lose, nor 
give away." 

Mr. McKinley was blamed for permitting the Philip- 



14 RETROSPECTION 

pines to fall on his shoulders. But his intentions and 
policy and promises were sound and will be fulfilled. 

No fault was found by the recipients when England 
gave to her seaboard colonies better land beyond the Alle- 
ghanies. But for expansion, which some say leads to im- 
perialism, the original area would to-day mark our limits, 
with Florida and the trans-Mississippi region in the hands 
of foreign powers, of Spain, France, or England, who were 
wont to trade in American lands as boys swap jack-knives. 
But when our presidents and their secretaries began 
acting upon their own judgment then criticism arose. Dis- 
cussion upon the floor of Congress became aggressive. 
"Large territory is not consistent with the spirit of repub- 
licanism, ' ' said one. ' ' To advance the west is to retard the 
east," broke forth another. "To make states of Louisiana 
territory would be a curse to us. " " Purchase Alaska ? We 
shall be buying ice-fields in Greenland next!" 

Still we will say in the face of so much mistaken wis- 
dom that the Philippine islands, though for the time a 
solemn obligation, are an unwelcome encumbrance, fit only 
as a refuge for broken-down politicians, and now and then 
a little gun practice. Our position in the Orient is safe 
enough without them. Porto Rico is no ornament, but an 
appendage easily dispensed with. With regard to the 
Hawaiian islands, it is different. They are the natural 
outpost of our coast, and would be a standing menace in 
the hands of a foreign power. 

A German colonel scents imperialistic tendencies in the 
fortification of the Panama canal, which nevertheless he 
thinks should be done. Doubtless from a feudalistic view- 
point he is correct. If it is necessary as under the ancient 
regime for a nation to fence around with forts every piece 
of its outlying possessions, then let the canal zone be forti- 
fied, even though civilization is supposed to have reached 
the point where a valid compact could be made between 
the nations that this property, important in its use to all, 
should remain unmolested in war as in peace, or even though 



EXPANSION AND EMPIRE 15 

a flock of air-ships might in a single hour drop bombs 
sufficient to blow it all, forts and waterways, to destruc- 
tion. Farther than this, until the efficiency of these new 
birds of prey is tested, it seems unwise to build forts or 
warships at all. 

Amidst the universal discussion of this subject Mr. 
Ralph Lane has sent forth a book, which has attracted some 
attention, on the abolition of war, upon the plea that all 
war is futile, in that it is unprofitable alike to victor and 
vanquished. This upon the assumption that money, lands, 
or dominions are the only things nations fight for. He is 
correct in regard to some wars, those waged for personal 
or political aggrandizement, such as have been most com- 
mon in Europe for example; but wars for principle or for 
some vital policy have two sides, and it is profitable to the 
right side if it wins. 

In every one of its wars, with the possible exception of 
the war of 1812, the United States has been successful ; all 
were just and honorable save one, our war with Mexico, 
but which was nevertheless profitable, giving us the Cali- 
fornia country, the garden of the world. 

History has given up repeating itself; change alone is 
constant. The philosophy of history consists no less in 
understanding the present and considering the future than 
in reviewing the past. That which was impracticable yes- 
terday may be desirable tomorrow. The reasonable 
expenditures of the rich become extravagance when in- 
dulged in by others. It is no more for the United States 
now to control islands in the Pacific, or dig an interoceanic 
waterway, than it once was to buy Louisiana and Florida, 
make an Erie canal, or construct a Cumberland turnpike. 
We can no more be justly charged with imperial republi- 
canism now than then. 

Nevertheless should any one find comfort in calling this 
federal government imperial he may very properly <!<> so. 
Imperial republicanism ought not to be a bad sort ; ought 



16 RETROSPECTION 

to be a little cleaner perhaps than a government by rail- 
roads for railroads. 

Rising suddenly to eminence on a breath of wind blown 
by this petty Spanish war, never having counted our wealth 
nor considered our strength, we were led by advanced ideas 
into certain measures over which the timid affect fear, 
just as it always is in periods of rapid progression. 

The time has passed when any nation may go prowling 
about the world conquering or appropriating new lands 
or old, and establishing dependencies and protectorates. 
Our people want none of these, but with a voice potential 
in the affairs of the world, with opportunities and abilities 
for the betterment of mankind such as were never before 
vouchsafed to any nation in any age, with the inclination 
and the power to employ mighty agencies for good, for the 
moral and intellectual advancement of the world, as illus- 
trated under the regime of Theodore Roosevelt, we ought 
not to be frightened from our high privileges by the stale 
cry of imperialism. 

In imitation of the ever-struggling powers of Europe, 
in their vain competition each to outdo the others in 
the size and efficiency of their war vessels, we spend our 
millions yearly in the construction of battle-ships which are 
obsolete almost before they are finished; whereupon we 
hasten to build one larger, and yet another still larger, 
which scramblings are idiotic enough in Europe but ten- 
fold more so in America. 

Nor should there be, nor is there any necessity for stand- 
ing armies and competitive war-ship building among civi- 
lized nations, as though all were fearful of an attack in the 
dark, as from savages, or of sudden assassination. No 
unarmed nation is likely to be annihilated before it can get 
together some means of defense. Or if concentrated force 
is necessary to maintain the peace of the world, let the 
Hague form a war trust, each nation contributing as to a 
police fund. 



EXPANSION AND EMPIRE 17 

The old adage is obsolete, and those who adopt it are 
obsolete, in time of peace prepare for war. Why prepare 
for war? Why not prepare for peace? Why should a 
nation any more than an individual go strutting about the 
world with scowling mien, upturned mustache, a pistol in 
each hand and a chip on its shoulder ? The men of Nippon 
go forth to die for their country with less bluster than the 
Germans, and we respect the Germans no more on that 
account. 

Far better our government should employ itself in pro- 
tecting what needs protection. I need not say that without 
government aid our commercial supremacy on the ocean 
will be lost; it is already lost. From ignorance or in- 
difference Congress has stood quiescent while England and 
Japan have possessed themselves of the world's carrying 
trade. In our kindness we even cut them a canal across 
our continent to facilitate their operations against us. For 
what can we want such a waterway when we have no 
ships? How is the canal to benefit our Pacific ports if 
we have no commerce, and how can we have commerce 
without either factories or carrying vessels? 



CHAPTER II 

UTOPIAN DREAMS 

IT was an age of altruistic ideals, though it had not yet 
occurred to the apostles for the betterment of the race 
the impossible in relation to disinterested benevolence. 
The disciples of John Knox and Jonathan Edwards were 
taught to draw satisfaction from the doctrine of election, 
provided they were of the elect. It was bliss for the 
believer, the thought of sitting in heaven and complacently 
regarding the agonies of the doomed below, and so long as 
her own little ones were safe the New England housewife 
still might blithely sing as she went about her work, though 
assured by her spiritual teacher that millions of innocents, 
born of other mothers, must suffer forever. Here as else- 
where in those days, in its many diverse and oppugnant 
forms, there was an all-pervading spirit of proselyting 
throughout Christendom, which broke out occasionally into 
fierce spasms of regeneration. 

The ethics of Jesus come to us in words, with a subcon- 
scious influence to the refining of the race; all the same 
the attendant deeds are diabolical. 

Some centuries ago had been promulgated the order to 
go forth into all the world and preach the gospel to every 
creature. Obedience to which mandate led the sanctified 
into strange ways. Saint Peter went forth to preach, and 
detecting Ananias in a very little lie he straightway slew 
him, and poor Sapphira also, forgetting the great falsehood 
he himself had so lately perpetrated, receiving therefor no 
punishment whatever. 

Pagan Rome preached the Christians into the cata- 

18 



UTOPIAN DREAMS 19 

combs; the Christians in their turn preached the pagan 
world into dungeons and torture-chambers. Persecution 
was quick to become an aid to proselyting; so that when 
the tidings of peace on earth good will to men reached the 
New World, the natives found the words of salvation trans- 
lated into the ethics of hell. By the Spanish convocation these 
savages were endowed with souls, primarily to give occu- 
pation to the church, and secondarily to give mistresses to 
the conquerors, for without a soul no heathen maid might 
become Christian wife or concubine. 

Passing the millions slaughtered for Christ's sake be- 
fore the work of enforcing conversion in America began; 
passing the autos-da-fe and torture-chambers of Tor- 
quemada, the treacheries practiced upon her Moors and 
the burning of Jews by good Queen Isabella in her ardent 
zeal for her religion; passing also the trail of the Inquisi- 
tion in Mexico and Peru, and the extermination of idola- 
trous innocents, and coming to our own country, w T hat sort 
of altruism do we find here, what way of preaching the 
gospel to every creature? 

John Calvin was present, in spirit if not in person, 
making people happy after the manner of his brother Knox, 
in the assurance of refuge for himself and followers in the 
convenient folds of predestination, with the flames of eter- 
nal fire for all others. 

England had her way of proselyting, as in India and 
Africa, as in the American slave shipments and the Chinese 
opium trade. The Puritans of Massachusetts, themselves 
having just fled from persecution, found solace in perse- 
cuting others ; they preached to the witch-women of Salem 
by burning them, and to the Quakers of Boston by drown- 
ing them. The planters of the south preached to the Afri- 
cans by the lash of their slave-drivers, while clearing the 
natives from fresh lands to take the place of their worn- 
out tobacco fields. 

It is a great comfort among the leaders of pure benevo- 



20 RETROSPECTION 

lence to possess the power to compel people to do right and 
come within the fold whether they will or not. Yet there 
was a world of kindness in the hearts of our forefathers, 
in the hearts of the stern old Puritans, who sought only to 
serve God in the proper way. 

True, there was the political aspect as well, the ideals of 
men escaped from iron bars, minds freed from circumscrip- 
tion and bodies delivered from the stripes, a Utopian de- 
mocracy based on freedom, free hands, free thought, free 
lands, an obsession of freedom even though in slavery to 
the supernatural, a freedom on whose heels followed 
closely interdictions and prohibitions. 

What wonder then if Utopian visions fired the imagina- 
tions of these ardent adventurers? Optimists all, with 
scattered hundreds of dreamers whose unrevealed impossi- 
bilities their fervid fancy carried into nebulous extremes. 

Here was a world unmarred by man basking in pri- 
meval plenteousness ; a brand-new continent only to be 
swept of its dusky denizens with their dreamy awakenings, 
and garnished with some small degree of the divine fire, 
to be fit for any purpose; a virgin land of limitless extent 
and surpassing potentialities, fresh from the hand of the 
Creator; a garden of the Hesperides, a new-world Eden, 
inhabited only by beings whose dim subconscious intelli- 
gence might easily be crushed, whose subordination Chris- 
tianity permitted and whose removal civilization demanded. 
If only reason might join hands with opportunity what a 
consummation were here! The preservation of nature's 
lands, the conservation of nature's forces, not for the 
present alone, but for all time, not to .multiply the debased 
but to elevate the capable and encourage the worthy, not 
to enrich the few but to benefit all. 

Here were natural resources such as would enrich a 
world, and if properly husbanded give to each inhabitant, 
now and forever, all the requisites of life, health, and happi- 
ness. Soil and climate, sunshine air and moving waters, 
metals in the mountains, forests on the hillsides, valleys 



UTOPIAN DREAMS 21 

prolific of every food, and underneath the surface the coal 
and the oil and all the vitalizing forces wherewith to forge 
fresh happiness. 

Imagine these natural advantages, this boundless 
wealth, enough for all time and all people, increasing rather 
than diminishing if guarded and managed by all as a wise 
and prudent person would manage his individual affairs; 
imagine such a state of things, no impost duties or taxes, 
no standing army or criminal class to support, no ever- 
increasing horde of pensioners, the necessary labor coming 
in the form of a blessing rather than a curse; imagine 
this, and behold the reality! 

Utopian dreams! Possible and practicable in so far as 
physical conditions were concerned, but alas! for the lack 
of human intelligence, of men or generations of men to 
meet the occasion ; a consummation not to be expected from 
an undeveloped race, not to be expected until a new flood 
obliterates the present time and sends forth a new Noah 
whose circumspection and behavior shall prove better than 
those of the old Noah. 

Such was this fair Altrurian land with all its sublime 
potentialities. Never before had men and conditions so 
met, and never on this earth can they so meet again. But 
is this the end? By no means. Life is a running conflict 
with no prospect of rest, no expectation of the realization 
of our early dreams of Elysian fields, or even of our old, 
long-lost home contentment. Yet hope never dies ; or if it 
does all is dead. All around us always the air is swarming 
with Utopias, fresh ones coming on as the old ones pass 
away. 

Thus it was that instead of the one dreamed-of and 
all-glorious Utopia there was an epidemic of Utopias run- 
ning through the early centuries of American occupation, 
ignes fatui chasing after the everlasting good, hunting for 
happiness in the wilderness, a straining to achieve the ulti- 
mate best on this earth, which has yet by no means ceased} 
2 



22 RETROSPECTION 

nor ever will cease, and which we cannot say that under 
any circumstances should w r e like to see come to an end. 

Let us look at some of them. 

What better place than Florida where might be flowing 
the fountain of youth which Juan Ponce de Leon failed in 
1512 to find in Bimini? 

And on the Atlantic side of the Darien isthmus, not far 
from the entrance to the present Panama canal, no less a 
personage than William Patterson, founder of the Bank 
of England, undertook to establish a Scotch Utopia along 
industrial lines. His intention was to make his settlement 
the entrepot of the Pacific, the pivotal point of the com- 
mercial world, where merchandise might be interchanged, 
and cargoes transferred, and whence Europe and all the 
Atlantic and Mediterranean seaports might be supplied 
with the products of North and South America, of Japan, 
China, and the South sea isles. 

1 1 The settlers of Darien, ' ' he said, ' ' will acquire a nobler 
empire than Alexander or Caesar, without fatigue, expense, 
or danger." 

Nor was Patterson the first to dream this dream. Vasco 
Nunez thought of it, and Pizarro's people, as their treasure- 
laden mule-trains jingled their bells along the trail to 
Nombre de Dios. The Manila merchants thought of it as 
their annual galleon filled to the hatchway with gold and 
silver, the teas and silks and carved ivory of the Far East 
anchored off Panama. 

All this is nearer realization to-day, for in Patterson's 
dream were no American canal-builders to take up the 
failure of the French ; no United States canal zone, with a 
city at either end, though he called Acla landing New 
Saint Andrew, and the region thereabout New Caledonia, 
where, he said, might be profitably grown indigo, sugar, 
tobacco, and all the tropical plants. 

They liked Scotch names, those Scotchmen, and besides 
that the Scotch names caught Scotch investors; indeed, 
there was later another and much broader New Caledonia 



UTOPIAN DREAMS 23 

in the Oregon country, and beyond, whereof the Scotch 
fur-traders might dream as inhabited by good Indians 
with boiled shirts and non-intoxicating whiskey, and innu- 
merable bands of gentle beasts with long silky fur glad to 
yield their skins to the grand dames of civilization. 

Patterson was the son of a Dumfriesshire farmer, and 
a genius, as Cortes and Columbus were geniuses. Besides 
achieving the bank of England and attempting the Darien 
Utopia, he roamed for a time about the West Indies, like 
Francis Drake's chaplain, Fletcher, as part missionary and 
part buccaneer. 

Under royal sanction "The Company of Scotland Trad- 
ing to Africa and the Indies, and their Colony of Darien' ' 
was formed, and in 1698 were landed on the Isthmus 1200 
shrewd Caledonians, insanely shrewd, half of them at least 
young men of good Scottish families; also English gentle- 
men, retired army officers, and others, all envied at depart- 
ure by thousands of eager aspirants obliged to remain at 
home. A capital of £400,000 with £600,000 for expenses 
of the expedition was quickly subscribed in Edinburgh, 
London, Hamburg and Amsterdam, one hundred pound 
shares quickly advancing in price to £1000 and £1500. 

More vessels were sent out and more money invested, 
until when the inevitable crash came, the loss from fever, 
famine, and shipwreck amounted to a score of ships, 2000 
lives, and several millions of money. 

Similar schemes were concocted, one in London and 
one in Paris, with similar results, narration of which 
would be but repetition; the former, called the South 
Sea bubble, being the creation of the South Sea company 
in 1711 by Lord Harley, earl of Oxford, for trading into 
South America, and for the extinction of the national 
debt; the latter called the Company of the West, origina- 
ting with John Law in 1719 for the easement of French 
finances. A royal bank with Law as director-general is- 
sued currency to the amount of 2,700,000,000 livres. 

The province of Louisiana, which gave it the name of 



24 RETROSPECTION 

Mississippi bubble when it burst, was thrown into the 
scheme, the strange part of it being that the property 
represented was worth the money, and is to-day worth a 
thousand times the money. 

Sir Thomas More's material rather than spiritual 
speculation chose for its ideally perfect place an island, 
which might easily be enlarged to a continent, or if success- 
ful in a small way why should it not embrace all the 
world? His ideally perfect conditions referred to social 
and political systems, whence we might infer that the 
social and political systems of our present civilizations 
are not perfect but to be improved, or, being necessary 
evils, if to be dispensed with altogether, as in Eden or in 
aboriginal lands, so much the better. Therefore we may 
not be so sure after all that the naked savages of the two 
Americas were not nearer Utopia than Sir Thomas More's 
galvanized civilization. 

It is so small an affair, a few years of life on this 
planet as compared with an eternity hereafter, that it 
seems out of place spending all of our time in perfecting 
earthly conditions; hence the wisdom of adding to our 
efforts heavenly benefits. 

And yet religion seeks an earthly Utopia as well as a 
heavenly one, and finds comfort in the seeking, as Salem 
and Boston found comfort in reclaiming humanity, while 
these and all the rest were easily reconciling themselves 
to the passing of the Indians. 

The Puritans colonized religion and adapted it to busi- 
ness methods, and while they anchored it to the soil a 
score of ephemeral efforts were made, like that of John 
Kelpius' Pietists, who established a brotherhood in 1694 
at Wissahickon, or like Peter Sluyter's Labadists, colonized 
at Chesapeake bay, soon to die out and be forgotten. 

Most successful of all was William Penn's Utopia, 
which went well as long as its founder lived, but fell in 
pieces afterward like all others. Pennsylvania flourished 



UTOPIAN DREAMS 25 

in fanaticism following the decline of Quakerism. A Ger- 
man, Beissel, established at Ephrata in 1728 a monastic 
society of celibates, which naturally came to grief. 
Jemima Wilkinson nourished for a time as a divine emis- 
sary in central New York. A society of French aristocrats 
and army officers labored with their hands for the com- 
mon good on the Susquehanna in 1793. 

Ann Lee came from Manchester, England, to America 
in 1774, and established the Shaking Quakers at New 
Lebanon. 

Count Zinzendorf's Bohemian brethren, or Moravians, 
in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and among the Indians, in 1741 
numbered 94 colonies with 11,781 members, the chief 
settlement being at Bethlehem. 

George Rapp, a persecuted preacher of Wiirttemberg, 
in 1803 brought to America 750 of his Separatists, and 
founded the communal settlements of Harmony and Econ- 
omy in Pennsylvania, and New Harmony, Indiana, after- 
ward sold to John Owen, a proselyting Scotchman, who 
before he failed founded eleven other communities. 
Another society of Separatists was established in 1817 by 
Joseph Bimelar at Zoar, Ohio. Swiss Inspirationists in 
1842 founded the community of Ebenezer, near Buffalo, 
afterward removing to Iowa. 

Other apostles of economic religion were the Francis- 
cans of California, the missionaries in Oregon, and the 
Mormons in Utah. There are also to this day schools of 
divine healing, schools of mysticism, and scores of other 
associations seeking for the unattainable good. 

Even philosophy and learning come forward with 
Utopian plans to try, notably the Brook Farm coterie of 
intellectually refined New Englanders, whose fantasy 
was the union of learning with farm labor, devoting half 
a day to each. They carried the matter alonir in a desul- 
tory sort of way for four years, when it fell in pieces, 
their philosophy being no better than their farming. 



26 RETROSPECTION 

The one all-powerful instinct of individuality, the one 
all-pervading human desire of personal possession, posses- 
sion of property, of wife, of children, of home, have always 
stood, and will so stand until man's nature changes, in the 
way of universal brotherhood and the communal life. 

The Franciscans in California present somewhat of a 
unique picture, and so long as they had the country to 
themselves they came as near as it is possible toward estab- 
lishing a Utopia among savages. 

Their one object, a safe seat in heaven for themselves 
and their converts, appeared under three several phases, 
self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of others, and absolute rule. 
Even Junipero Serra, the father president, was not above 
self-flagellations before the Indians for example's sake, 
as the medicine-men of native tribes mutilate themselves 
with sharp stones to impress their fellows. And death, 
why should they fear it, which was but opening the door 
to paradise? 

Very low in the scale of humanity were these whom the 
priests had come to save. Entirely naked, skin black and 
coarse matted hair, eaters of snails and grasshoppers, with 
holes in the ground and huts of brush for houses, were it 
not better to leave them as God had made them, God who 
should know why he had made them so, rather than cast 
reflection upon his work by attempting to improve upon 
it ? Not so. For where then would be the church, the mis- 
sionary work, and this preaching the gospel to every 
creature ? 

Two years after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, 
and the occupation of the Peninsula by the Dominicans, 
the order of Saint Francis built the first of its score of 
mission establishments in Alta California at San Diego. 
The father president was personally in charge of explora- 
tion and construction in this the first invasion of this 
region by Europeans. 

The missionaries aimed as nearly as practicable to 
plant an establishment every fifteen leagues, which should 



UTOPIAN DREAMS 27 

give them about twenty to San Francisco bay, their ultima 
thule of present endeavor. Each mission claimed pro- 
prietorship half-way to its neighbor on either side. 

First they must impress their mastery upon these dull 
clods — why should omniscience have given this lowest of 
intelligences the fairest spot of earth? Surely not for 
development, not for appreciation; during the thou- 
sand years more or less of their occupation of this garden 
they had not advanced an iota; they could not retrograde 
being born at the bottom. As for subconsciousness and 
oversoul or other involved psychology of savagism, they 
had none, save such as they held in common with the jack- 
rabbits around them ; and when it came to a realization of 
the blessings they enjoyed, they could appreciate an un- 
cooked rattle-snake steak but they did not understand the 
stars. 

Thus the poor padres found their work of conversion 
much the same as if their neophytes had been drawn from 
these same jack-rabbits, into whose patient ears the streams 
of salvation must be poured. 

Nevertheless with good heart they went about their 
work, for he that believeth much loveth much. The mis- 
sion site was carefully selected at some little distance 
from the boat-landing and presidio, or fort, so that the 
influence of the wicked ones might not reach their inno- 
cents. Then building began, sun-dried mud mixed with 
dried grass being the principal material. The padres 
had no difficulty in bribing their neophytes to work a 
little, their preference being material rather than spiritual 
rewards. 

The natives at each mission numbered from two to five 
thousand, lessening one-half every twenty years. The 
men and women occupied separate quarters until properly 
married. In due time they found courage to do a little 
fighting, but for the most part they were peaceable. 

Issues frequently arose between the temporal and 
spiritual powers, but were settled in the main without 



28 RETROSPECTION 

serious controversy. The military was its own master, 
yet it was there to serve the church, which was all power- 
ful up to the time of secularization in 1834. Mission prop- 
erty then fell into the hands of the government, or to 
those who were able to seize and hold it, the missionaries 
still retaining sufficient for their purposes, while liberal 
grants of land were made to whomsoever asked for them. 

Some of the missions became wealthy in cattle, sheep, 
and horses, raising besides more than they could sell of 
fruit, grain, oil, and wine. They had their workshops, 
some of the natives becoming quite skilful workers in iron, 
wool, and leather. It was common for the missions to have 
running at large of cattle 1000 to 5000; of sheep 1000 to 
12,000 ; of horses 100 to 1000 ; also mules, goats, and swine. 
They raised from 5000 to 100,000 bushels of wheat per 
annum; 1000 to 25,000 bushels of barley; 1000 to 20,000 
bushels of corn ; and 50 to 2500 bushels of beans. 

Thus under the happiest auspices, and with the fullest 
enjoyment of their Utopia, did these indigenes of 
California achieve civilization, or would have achieved it 
had they lived, and not have died from protection and kind- 
ness; for when taken in their low estate and placed in 
contact with civilization the savages are killed as surely, 
if not as quickly, by kindnoss as by the sword of their 
comquerors. 

The Perfectionists, in an attempt to live a sinless life, 
were driven from Vermont because of their free-love pro- 
clivities, and in 1848 settled at Oneida, New York. Mor- 
monism arose in western New York, became infected with 
polygamy in Illinois, and in 1848 fled into the deserts of 
the Great Salt Lake. 

The origin and exodus of the Mormons, their ethnic 
evolution and occupation of Utah, if analyzed as a prob- 
lem and not indulged in as a prejudice forms an interest- 
ing study. 



UTOPIAN DREAMS 29 

Theirs is one of the few religions of the century which 
seems to have come to stay. It is remarkable primarily in 
its indigenous origin and logical development, attended 
by the usual signs and wonders, miracles and revelations, 
and, in spite of a crude mystic mechanism, all visible to 
the naked eye. Springing up in a field fertilized by 
stupidity and credulity, it has grown to become a great 
tree, bringing forth fruit after its kind. Although acci- 
dental and spontaneous in its inception, without premedi- 
tation or design on the part of any artificer, it was un- 
folded by palpable means, the work usually occupying 
five centuries being accomplished in half a century. Even 
such parts as appear more like modern invention, with 
mechanical contrivances so gross as to be revolting, dis- 
play little ability or constructive skill. 

It is a theocracy singularly devoid of originality. In 
quality it is second rate as religions run, yet more pro- 
nounced in its several parts than any of them ; Hebrew of 
the Hebrews, more Christian than Christianity, more 
ethical than Buddhism, more involved than Mohammed- 
anism. It is essentially an imitation, and as is common 
in imitations, inclined to outdo its exemplar. Less than a 
century old, of tough, coarse fiber, with all its secrets laid 
bare before an enlightened world, it yet displays unmistak- 
able signs of endurance, with flame enough in its fanati- 
cism to warrant its burning for awhile with the best of 
them. 

This is how it came about. At Palmyra, in western 
New York, not far from general intelligence and puritanism, 
lived a common-place family by the name of Smith, who 
had floated thither from Vermont. One of the members, 
Joseph, born in 1805, set himself up as a Messiah, for 
which he was killed at Carthage, Illinois, in 1844. 

In common with many of their neighbors, the Smiths 
were poor and shiftless, with a faculty for believing to be 
true whatever they were told, and as ready to delude as 
to be deluded. Wealth without work, and a short and easy 



30 RETROSPECTION 

road to heaven, comprised their philosophy of life. Hid- 
den treasure, with supernatural means for its discovery, 
was ever a favorite theme. The boy Joseph, with his magic 
peep-stone and witch-hazel divining rod, could make the 
other boys, and even his elders, follow him and dig as he 
directed. Of a harmlessly dissolute disposition the youth 
delighted in tricking his companions, and playing upon 
the credulity of the community by telling fortunes and 
reeling off yarns as the fantasies arose in his vagrant mind. 

Into this caldron of malodorous conceit was presently 
projected an element whose effect might be little dreamed 
of. It appeared in the form of an unpublished book by a 
Presbyterian clergyman, the Reverend Spaulding, entitled 
The Manuscript Found. It had been sent by the author, 
just before his death, to a printing office in Pittsburg for 
publication, but was thrown aside, and soon became office 
rubbish. Later it was unearthed, and after passing about 
as a thing of no value, it finally fell into the hands of 
Joseph Smith, and became eventually one of the sacred 
books of the Latter-day Saints, under the title of The 
Booh of Mormon. 

Its apotheosis was in this wise. Opening the book and 
glancing through its contents, Joseph found written, in 
biblical style, a sort of religious romance, being a hypo- 
thetical account of the migrations from Babel, and sub- 
sequent adventures in America, of the ten lost tribes of 
Israel, whom the author made progenitors of the Indians. 
Joseph read and pondered. Though cunning, he was not 
wise, still less learned. 

"Was this book part of the Bible ? No. Why not ? The 
Bible is made up of parts, or books, thrown together. 
Perhaps this is a book of the Bible left out. Or it may be 
another Bible. If not, might it not stand for another 
religion? The counterpart or companion, perhaps, of 
the Hebrew scriptures. Put the two Bibles and the two 
religions together, — there is an idea! What an oppor- 
tunity for a grand coup ! 



UTOPIAN DREAMS 31 

Here comes in the mystic machinery. This book looks 
like a Bible, or part of one. To make it so in the eyes of 
men, and as a guarantee of its inspiration, it must have 
divine origin and supernatural advent. Moreover, if there 
is to be a new religion a personage must appear, anything 
will do, even a Joseph Smith, prophet priest and king of 
the early and later dispensations, so that he be in direct 
communication with heaven and able to prove it. The 
pretended original of the Spaulding manuscript, the 
manuscript which as was alleged had been found, might 
serve an important purpose if it could be made miraculous. 
And so on. 

It is safe to assume, judging from subsequent develop- 
ments, that by some such train of reflection Spaulding 's 
Manuscript Found was transformed into the Book of Mor- 
mon, Joseph Smith into a new Messiah, and the church of 
aboriginal Israel into the church of Jesus Christ of Latter- 
day Saints, for that such transformations were made is a 
historical fact. 

To imagine Mormonism the invention of Joseph Smith, 
or of any one else, a scheme or premeditated plan wrought 
out from its inception by a subtle and prolific brain, or 
by any number of them, is as far from the probable as to 
refer its authorship direct to supernatural agency, with 
the prophets and apostles as media for all the miracles and 
divine manifestations they claim to have been accom- 
plished through them. The true disciple solves the problem 
by uniting the mysteries and making God the author of 
all, the prophet and his performances included. 

Nor is it impossible that Joseph at a later period, 
from deceiving others proceeds unconsciously to deceive 
himself, thus becoming his latest and most important 
creation and convert. 

It is not impossible, as time passed and new and 
wonderful happenings fell upon him, that the vagrant 
youtli into whose hands thus accidentally fell the Spauld- 
ing manuscript, and whose only thought at first was to 



32 RETROSPECTION 

amuse himself at the expense of his parents and neigh- 
bors, — for his parents it is said were among the first to 
receive his words as truth, or to pretend to do so, — after 
many iterations of his fable, and seeing the seriousness 
with which it was accepted by his elders, forgot the manu- 
factured part, whose details grew dim with time and re- 
ligious fervor, forgot Joe Smith and remembered only the 
prophet of the Lord. An idealist, and essentially vision- 
ary in both sacred and secular matters, as time passed on 
toward the later periods of his career he may have fancied 
himself in truth the recipient of messages direct from 
heaven. Since so many united in asserting his divinity, 
was it not possible that he was indeed divine? Though 
known to him, as to no one else, were all the falsehoods 
he had told and the fantastic tricks he had played, yet 
might it not be that these lies and tricks were of the Lord, 
their proper use thus given to him, Joseph, for a mighty 
purpose, as a means of grace, and for God's greater glory? 

Nature had endowed the prophet thus improvised by 
fate with shrewd wit; and though of somewhat shallow 
mind he possessed a vivid imagination and magnetic per- 
sonality. That he was successful shows that he was not 
without ability, though he was far less capable in certain 
directions than some of those who succeeded him. That he 
was unscrupulous did not trouble his conscience, for such 
had been his training from his youth up, and his con- 
science, moreover, was from the Lord and for his work. 
And the thought of his proposed work was not so discom- 
fiting to his mind as might be imagined. 

There should be no great difficulty in achieving the 
supernatural on the part of one who had practiced miracles 
all his life, still less in making people think they believed 
in it, for great is the gullibility of mankind ! 

A plausible account must be given of the coming of 
this gift from heaven, this book of Mormon. We have 
it here. 



UTOPIAN DREAMS 33 

And now a vision fell upon Joseph. The angel Moroni 
appeared and directed him to a cave on the hillside, where 
he found metal plates, on which were inscribed strange 
characters, which by the aid of his peep-stone he was able 
to interpret. From behind a screen, with such interpola- 
tions as seemed to suit his purpose, the prophet read off 
from Spaulding's manuscript his Book of Mormon, which 
was taken down by an amanuensis just outside the sacred 
precinct, and published by "Joseph Smith, jun., author 
and proprietor, Palmyra, New York, 1830." 

The work finished, the angel closed the cave and car- 
ried away the metal plates. 

Thus was evolved this latter-day theocracy. Doubtless 
if the truth were told in relation to the origin of any 
other religion nothing more wonderful would be found, 
nothing more worthy of credence. All religions are patch- 
work, but all religions are not all patchwork; few 
have been so nearly so as Mormonism, which had been 
better with some of the patches omitted, parts such as civil- 
ization had some time since compelled the older religions 
to eliminate. 

The tenets of the Mormon faith are derived entirely 
from the Old and New Testaments of the orthodox scrip- 
tures, principally from the former, which are accepted 
literally and followed to their logical conclusions. The 
Book of Mormon, which is annexed to the Bible as a part 
of it, is a crude romance, a mere flight of fancy, but to 
one who had never known aught of either there is nothing 
more unnatural, or more difficult of belief, in the books of 
Nephi and Alma, in the book of Moroni, who was the 
angel, or in the book of Mormon, from which the volume 
takes its name, than in the books of Genesis and Joshua; 
nothing more difficult of belief in the revelations of Joseph 
Smith than in the revelations of Saint John the Divine. 

Feeling his way, sounding the credulity of his fol- 
lowers and searching his scriptures for models for his hier- 
archy, Joseph was able in due time to present his forms 



34 RETROSPECTION 

and rituals, temple tabernacle and holy of holies, priest- 
hood and tithing, constitution and council, blood atone- 
ment anointment and twelve apostles, miracles and all 
sorts of spiritual manifestations and revelations, all drawn 
from holy writ, all in strict accordance with the sacred 
scriptures of the orthodox Christian sects. 

Obviously miracles, the vital requisite of every new 
faith, must be at hand; also revelation and every celestial 
telegraphy. For if all this was once wise and beneficent, 
God being God, it is the same now. 

The Almighty, immutable and unchangeable, having 
once established a decree, it must stand forever. Cus- 
toms once having had divine sanction cannot be obliterated 
by civilization. 

They held it unreasonable to accept the scriptures as 
the word of God, and then explain away such parts of it 
as from time to time became intolerable to ever-unfolding 
human intelligence. If polygamy, slavery, or other alleged 
abomination were once right in his sight, and stand as they 
do unrebuked upon the pages of scripture, then they are 
right now; if miracles and revelations once obtained, they 
obtain now; if the law limits a man to one wife, then it 
should compel every man to marry, else many women are 
unjustly deprived of husbands, and the millions of dis- 
embodied spirits seeking incarnation are defrauded. 

In which Mormonism makes the not uncommon mis- 
take of investing religion with the superior force in 
psychic development, and the dominant influence in ethics. 
It does not recognize the fact that civilization ever pre- 
cedes and regulates religion, toning down its asperities 
and eliminating its barbarities; also that the powers of 
light and darkness are with law and progress, and not with 
superstition or fanaticism; that this power no religion can 
withstand and being absolute is right and must be obeyed. 

Nor can it be denied that of all interpretations of the 
scriptures this is the most logical. To every religion the 
beliefs of every other religion are a bundle of absurdities, 



UTOPIAN DREAMS 35 

while to the uninfected agnostic they are all equally ab- 
surd. Orthodoxy has cut loose from the restraint of the 
written word, so that every Sunday throughout the Chris- 
tian world ten thousand preachers of the word ascend the 
pulpit and in half an hour tell God more about himself 
than he ever knew; tell the people what God sees, how he 
feels, what he loves and hates, what he wants or does not 
want, until Deity himself thus recreated stands agape. 

A church was organized with priests and presidency 
in 1833, the twelve apostles being added two years later. 
Miracles were then in order ; and it is to be regretted that 
the angel declined leaving the metal plates with Joseph, 
but spirited them away as soon as the Book of Mormon 
was finished, for every one knew well that nothing short of 
a miracle could have brought so much gold into the Smith 
family. 

The mantle of the prophets fell on Joseph, and he 
prophesied and spake in tongues. 

Which assumption was a little too much for some of 
his neighbors, this and the fact that the brethren were 
always united, politically and industrially, clannish they 
called it and un-American; more un-American, perhaps, 
than was the killing of Mormons in the Carthage jail. 

We fancy that we hate the Mormons because of their 
polygamy. It is not so. Up to the time of their fiercest 
persecution in Illinois there had been no polygamy. When 
they were driven from New York, from Ohio, from Mis- 
souri, there had been no polygamy. They were hated first 
as one religion hates another, as Jews hate Christians, and 
as Christians hate Pagans. Then they became a power in 
politics, dominated a county, voted together and filled the 
offices. Like Chinese, they were temperate, kept to them- 
selves, worked hard, and were thrifty and honest, and so 
were hated by the lazy and licentious. 

This was the real cause of their offending, as it was 
with the Chinese. Politicians fanned the flame, and so 



36 RETROSPECTION 

made votes for themselves; the public press joined in the 
cry, as on the side of the stronger lay their profit. 

For I have noticed that it is the lazy and worthless 
who shout loudest against the Asiatics, and it is often the 
immoral men and women of so-called respectable society 
that are the foremost in denouncing the Mormons. 

In Ohio, in 1832, appeared among the brethren Brig- 
ham Young, seeking truth, later to be high priest of the 
people, a Moses in the coming exodus, and in the flowery 
desert of Utah chief of the hierarchy. He found Joseph 
chopping wood, and hailed him as prophet of the Lord. 
He had seen and read the Book of Mormon, and pro- 
nounced himself converted. He was a native of Vermont, 
four years older than Joseph, which made him at this 
time thirty-one years of age. They became warm friends; 
such was Brigham's policy. Punctilious at all points as 
before a divine master, he nevertheless made the prophet 
his protege, several times saving his life in the persecu- 
tions that followed. 

Brigham plunged at once into the midst of things, his 
dominant will carrying all before it, yet with such judi- 
cious tact as not to cause offence. In his first prayer in 
public he spoke in tongues, as he expressed it, and on 
being questioned as to the language, he soberly declared it 
to be pure Adamic. 

The prophet consulted with him as to church policy 
and revelations. They discussed polygamy as a tenet of 
their faith and resolved on its introduction by divine 
revelation, which was done in 1843, only a year before the 
prophet's death. It was practised in secret at first, and 
only appeared in full bloom after reaching Utah; hence, 
contrary to popular impression, it had little to do with 
their expatriation. 

"Yet what would you, Brother Brigham?" we might 
have heard Joseph say, when, on the 12th of July, 1843, 
came the revelation commanding polygamy. "What 



UTOPIAN DREAMS 37 

would you when man comes into existence as a disem- 
bodied spirit, of which the universe is full, seeking incar- 
nation? To advance this purpose is to give God and 
man the greatest glory. Hence the sacred obligation 
on the part of woman, one of the rewards attending it 
being plenary indulgence; all sins heretofore committed 
forgiven. Think of it, Brother Brigham. Unmarried 
women cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. " 

The wrath of the Illinois gentiles was somewhat ap- 
peased on the promise of the Saints to go, but that did 
not prevent them from taking every advantage of the 
Mormons while disposing of such property as they were 
unable to take with them. 

In June, 1844, a riot occurred from the suppression 
of an abusive gentile newspaper by the Mormons, and 
among those arrested were Joseph Smith and his brother 
Hiram, who were soon after assassinated in Carthage 
jail. 

The followers of the prophet were now counted by 
thousands, though there were many apostates who declined 
polygamy. In the coming exodus, unless the main body 
could be kept united the society would break up and prob- 
ably drop out of existence, as so many others had done. 
There were several claimants for the leadership, some of 
them with pretentions superior to Brigham 's, but none 
with his rugged genius. He established a rule of succession, 
giving himself the first incumbency, which he felt sure he 
could make last a lifetime. 

Thus fell the prophet's mantle on Brigham Young, 
but for whose deep insight into human nature and shrewd 
ability Mormonism at this juncture would probably have 
fallen in pieces. Whether or not he was the original in- 
stigator of polygamy, he now favored the measure, fore- 
seeing the results which would accrue in a far away 
wilderness, whither he hastened to conduct his people. 

He could not foresee, however, the acquisition of 
California, the discovery of gold, and the tide of emigra- 



38 RETROSPECTION 

tion destined so soon to break in upon the peace of Utah. 
Meanwhile he became what Joseph Smith never was, abso- 
lute master of the Mormons — dominator and lord of every 
man and woman of them, of their lives and fortunes, of 
their bodies and souls. Marriages and massacres he 
ordered at pleasure, divine revelation of whatsoever qual- 
ity desired being ever ready at hand. He could preach 
and pray and prophesy, interlarding his discourses with 
maledictions dire and deep, which rumbled through the 
Rocky mountains to the east and to the west. 

It was the cardinal error of this rough-hewn theocracy, 
making all its women wives, and that so openly as to bring 
down upon its church the censure of the immaculate 
world. Had each patriarch presented to the public one 
wife only, and sealed the others as concubines, following 
scriptural methods, or as mistresses after the manner of 
orthodox immorality, much trouble might have been saved. 

The assassination of Joseph strengthened if indeed it 
did not save the church. As Christ had died so died 
Joseph for his people. A stronger than Joseph must now 
guide the multitude and establish the church in the wilder- 
ness. 

So Brigham led them forth, resting over winter at 
Omaha, and reaching Salt Lake valley in 1846. There he 
possessed himself of that people, ruling with a rod of iron 
for thirty-three years and filling his harem. Isolated 
from the world he was his own master, and their prophet 
priest and king. 

His absolutism was as complete in financial as in 
ecclesiastical affairs. Following the announcement of a 
revelation, never-failing and effective as a means, tithes 
were brought in to him ; he never sent out a collector ; the 
faintest hint was sufficient to bring a delinquent to his 
knees. Of that which was brought he took what he wanted 
for himself and devoted the rest to the church and to the 
people. He rendered no accounting to any one, though 
after his reign church account books were kept. 



UTOPIAN DREAMS 39 

He cared nothing for personal wealth; why amass for 
himself when all was his? He cared greatly for the wel- 
fare of his people. He considered their interests, after 
considering his own; he was fair to them, after being fair 
to himself. 

In the eyes of his many humble subjects, there were 
united in him divine and temporal power. His word was 
law even in matters of life and death. A contrast in every 
way to the prophet Joseph, he was a born master of men, 
shrewd and bold yet cautious and considerate. 

He was founder, ordainer, and preserver of the Mor- 
mon church in Utah. Against the enemies of his church he 
would rage like a wild beast, filling his tabernacle with 
loud and vulgar denunciations, to the edification of the 
brethren. For six years, from 1856 to 1862, he stood in 
armed opposition to the United States. 

It is no great praise to say, simply, that he did good 
work in the transformation of the desert, for to him the 
country is indebted for the organization and development 
of one of its finest cities and states. As Collier says, 
11 There is no Rocky mountain community that shows more 
growth and vigor than Salt Lake city. The streets, laid 
out by the early Mormons are broad and straight, and the 
modern buildings that are now going up will help to make 
the coming city one of the foremost in the entire west. 
The streets are filled with crowds of busy shoppers and 
active business men. This city, in the heart of what was, 
a generation ago, the great American desert, is now the 
common pride of Mormon and gentile. It is a monu- 
ment which will be enduring, to the spirit of the far west 
and the wisdom of the pioneers." 

In 1882 the government disfranchised polygamists, and 
in 1890 the church being in organized rebellion, its prop- 
erty was confiscated. A thousand polygamists were 
arrested and sent to prison. The church surrendered ; the 
extinction of polygamy was promised. Monogamist laws 
were accepted by president and conference. Acts of 



40 RETROSPECTION 

amnesty were passed in 1893-4, and Utah was admitted 
as a state in 1896. 

The Edmunds law making plural cohabitation a crime, 
though made in Washington was not for Washington, and 
it never was applied elsewhere than in Utah. The Mor- 
mons in a measure disregarded it, as the legislators who 
made the law disregarded it, as all the people throughout 
the land disregarded it, each and all practising their pet 
wickedness in secret while denying it openly. It was 
surely a crime thus to break their promise and defy the 
law, but they had learned iniquity of late in the high- 
school of the nation. Hitherto they had pursued their 
tranquil way amid their flocks and families, whom they 
dearly loved, until their eyes were opened by the law- 
makers in Congress, where they were taught all the latest 
methods of how to fix things. 

We all know that religious fanatics, Christian as well 
as pagan, will break the laws of man rather than the laws 
of God. But evolution is inexorable, and in giving re- 
ligion the precedence over progress as refiner of the race 
our plurality friends reverse the natural order of things, 
and they must needs be told what more enlightened people 
know, that all along the ages religion has befogged the 
minds of men, leading them into fields of Golgotha, and 
inflicting on humanity every species of cruelty, wrong, 
and injustice, until seized and forced from its barbarities 
by civilization, by the unfolding of that saving grace 
which perforce must prove the redemption of the world. 

When paganism says, "You can find no word in your 
scriptures against slavery, polygamy, and other like enor- 
mities," civilization can only reply, "Then there is some- 
where in the universe a more refining influence than that 
derived from the old testament. ' ' 

This ever-progressing force pronounces slavery and 
polygamy abominations whose sanction would bring ruin 
on the race. And if it is an evil in the open, how much 
more is it in crowded habitations. 



UTOPIAN DREAMS 41 

All this, however, need not prevent a charitable view 
of the case. The sins oif the righteous are many, and 
need forgiveness; they afford, however, no excuse for the 
sins of the wicked. But beneath the velvet robes of con- 
vention which enwrap soul and body who shall tell sheep 
from goats? 

Sensualists you say? Not so, my friend; sensualism 
has small part in Mormon marriages, which are indeed a 
religious rite. Your true sensualist is not one with many 
wives, but one with many women and no wife. 

It is the fashion for women to shriek and men to 
bluster at mention of the words Mormon, polygamy. It 
is well. Virtue must have its vindication, and the lack 
of it still greater vindication. But should we not remem- 
ber that vice unmentionable has permanent lodgment with 
us? We know it and know it not. We shut our eyes and 
there is present no evil. High society sanctions it, lotftily 
indifferent; respectability harbors it, apparently uncon- 
scious, while ministering to its high priests within the 
inner temple. Husband and son smile and frown, the 
wife and mother look the other way. Over the portal, 
invisible to all save those who fathom it, is written : There 
are more unchaste persons in every large city in Christen- 
dom than there are Mormon wives in Utah. Wherefore 
good people all, be as charitable as you choose to your 
lecherous loved ones, at the same time be a trifle fair to 
the much-married Mormon. 



CHAPTER III 

THE SILENT MYSTERY OF THE UNTENANTED PLAINS 

TO the slowly unfolding intellect of early Mediter- 
ranean peoples, with their narrow horizon and dim 
self-consciousness, the world beyond their ken was not a 
world. In the north was a wall of ice, at the south a belt 
of fire, while all around and beyond were spirits of evil 
omen floating in space. There were assigned for departed 
souls a special place of torment for some and a land of 
happiness for others, and thus for the archaic ages all 
was properly arranged. 

Far advanced from these limited imaginings were the 
minds of men when ages afterward the Atlantic became the 
Sea of Darkness with its island of Atlantis, its frozen 
north and melting south, and over beyond visions of Fair 
Cathay with the fragrant isles of the Celestial East; later 
to become a sea of light and pathway to an ocean beyond, 
the greatest of oceans, but destined for a time longer, like 
the others, to sit in darkness. 

And for a century or two after the shores of the 
Pacific were well defined, and ships could sail about with 
confidence, and through these waters might even circum- 
navigate the globe, the interior of America remained as 
great a mystery as any of the mysteries preceding it. 

Long after the settlement of Jamestown, or the coming 
of the Pilgrims from Holland, wild tales were current 
regarding the lands newly found, brought back to Spain 
and England by mariners from both oceans, who fre- 
quently paid no more regard to truth than suited their 
fancy or convenience. This might the more safely be 

42 



MYSTERY OF THE UNTENANTED PLAINS 43 

done as there was no one present to contradict their 
report. 

Thus California was mapped as an island and peopled 
with Amazons. It was situated "on the right hand side 
of the Indies, very near the terrestrial paradise." 

While journeying overland through Texas in 1535 
Cabeza da Vaca heard of large cities toward the north, 
and when Friar Marcos de Niza was sent to investigate 
he deemed it best to find something; wherefore he discov- 
ered the seven cities of Cibola, which he saw from a hill, the 
smallest of which was as large as the city of Mexico, he said. 

It may have been an enlargement of the tenements of 
the Zurii in the good friar's imagination, or it may have 
been pure invention. Whatever it was, or, rather, what- 
ever it was not, it so fired the cupidity of Francisco Vas- 
quez de Coronado as to lead to his famous expeditions to 
New Mexico in 1540. And although this conquistador 
could find no opulent cities he saw Niza's Cibola, which 
were seven Pueblo villages, more or less. The houses were 
of dried mud and not worth destroying. 

Then Coronado was told of Quivira, a brilliant city 
beyond, but on reaching the place he found it of straw. 
Yet he could not return empty-handed and with silent 
tongue; so another mythical Quivira was improvised, 
richer and more beautiful by far than any hitherto 
thought of, while the country around was a paradise. 

Alonzo de Parades placed Quivira in Texas, Jefferys 
in Oregon, Purchas in the northwest, Acosta in Florida, 
Avity on the California coast below Mendocino; for did 
not Padre Freytas find the flitting city and write a full 
and true account of it, telling of all the magnificence he 
saw there, and of much that he did not see ? 

This myth was wholly a myth, a beautiful city made 
out of nothing and belonging nowhere, a living lie — if 
lies live — for two and a half centuries, as all that time all 
geographers charted it and all scholars accredited it. 

In Hakluyt's edition of Peter Martyr, 1587, the great 



44 RETROSPECTION 

northwest is an unexplored blank, with a mar dulce at 
latitude 60°, about midway of the continent, California is 
a peninsula, Quivira is on the coast at about latitude 40°, 
while a great lake stands over the name New Mexico. The 
coast of Cathay is about fifty degrees west of Drake's Nova 
Albion. 

So the magic ball of mystery was kept rolling about 
upon the land as on the sea, and the cosmographers were 
not up to date who had not on their maps a fine broad 
channel cut through the continent in its widest part, and 
an Anian regnum, a Quivira regnum, and a Tolm regnum. 

If so much was to be made out of the travels through 
the waste places by land, how much more might those who 
first sailed along the borders of the two Americas let fly 
their imagination over the land and write as the spirit 
dictated. Wherefore many were the apocryphal voyages 
to the northwest and through the strait of Anian, and 
many were the bungling falsehoods told, until when the 
truth began to appear the Northern Mystery was more 
mysterious than ever. 

A dozen navigators testified as to the mythical strait; 
some had seen it, some had seen those who had seen it, 
some had sailed through it, and the king of Spain took 
steps to fortify it. Drake and Cavendish heard of a large 
inland sea in the north ; Pedro Menendez saw not only the 
strait but a great city beside it; Maldonado sailed on it 
through the continent, and back, both ways. The libraries 
became filled with such reports, and the most famous 
cosmographers always threw into their maps a plentiful 
supply of conjectural geography. 

The subject again presents itself in the last chapter 
of this volume. 

Next to send forth a written report on the coast of 
California after Cabrillo's survey to San Diego and the 
islands in 1542 was Francis Drake's chaplain, Fletcher, 
ready to turn his master's piracies into picnics, or sail his 



MYSTERY OF THE UNTENANTED PLAINS 45 

ships through the Rocky mountains, at the cavalier's good 
pleasure. 

It was a day long to be remembered when Drake 
beached his vessel in the cove above the Golden Gate, and 
Fletcher seated himself on the shore, fancy free, to write 
up his notes. As well make a good story, one that will 
please both Sir Drake and his gracious queen, Elizabeth. 

So here it goes. 

While thus engaged "came a man of large body and 
goodly aspect bearing the Septer or royal mace . . . 
Avhereupon hanged two crowns, a bigger and a lesser, with 
three chaines of a marvellous length. There is no part 
of earth here wherein there is not gold and silver. Infinite 
was the company of very large and fat Deere which there 
we saw by thousands, besides a multitude of a strange kind 
of Conies, his tayle like the tayle of a Rat." 

The natives received the words of salvation with rap- 
ture, listening attentively to the reading of the scriptures, 
and when the strangers took their leave "with sighs and 
sorrowings, with heavy hearts and grived minds they 
poured out wofull complaints and moanes with bitter 
teares and wringing of their hands, tormenting them- 
selves. ' ' 

So like the California Digger, the lowest in the scale 
of humanity, eaters of mussels and grasshoppers, neither 
gold nor ground-squirrels being within many miles of 
them. Then as to the language, or of such speech as these 
clods were capable, the Reverend Fletcher forgets to men- 
tion how he managed it. 

Some excuse was now wanting for discontinuing the 
voyage of discovery farther north, for as there were no 
treasure ships to capture in that vicinity, a change in the 
ship's course might prove advisable. Something startling 
to satisfy the queen must be found. To be frozen up 
would do — as they were sailing north, and no one knew 
that the icebergs of Alaska did not extend south to Cali- 
fornia in midsummer. And once free, the captain might 



46 RETROSPECTION 

return to England through the strait of Anian, — Mr. 
Fletcher could easily make it read correctly in the narra- 
tive — or take a junketing trip around the world, as he 
should elect. Whereupon the worthy chaplain continues. 
They "used to come shivering to us in their warm furres 
crowding close together body to body, to receive heate one 
of another. Oh ! how unhandsome and deformed appeared 
the face of the earth it selfe." Having set sail, the ice so 
covered the ropes and clung to the rigging that the sailors 
could not navigate the ship. Hence the captain was 
actually compelled to turn back and watch the Manila 
galleon on its way to Acapulco. 

Other navigators following in Drake's tracks to the 
coast of California passed on and spoke to the Chinooks 
of the Columbians and the Aleuts of the Hyperboreans, 
but none of them ventured inland. 

Therefore two and a half centuries after the coming of 
Cortes to Mexico the vast northern interior slept on in 
silence, unknowing and unknown, all without a mystery to 
those within, all within a mystery to those without. 

Cardenas, one of Coronado's captains, in 1540 saw the 
Moqui towns in latitude 36', and the grand canon of the 
Colorado, while another of his officers found the mouth of 
the river and ascended the stream nearly to the Gila. 

Juan de Onate was on the Colorado in 1604, fifty 
years before the organization of the Hudson Bay com- 
pany, more than fifty years before either Pere Marquette 
or La Salle were in the Mississippi valley, and 188 years 
before Alexander Mackenzie ascended Peace river. 

All this time the great interior Plains of North Amer- 
ica, prairie mountains and desert, particularly such parts 
as are now of the United States, remained if not unknown 
to at least untenanted by civilization. 

We call them untenanted; civilization so calls them, 
because in our arrogance we hold all the works of crea- 
tion as nothing beside the white man. As nothing this 



MYSTERY OF THE UNTENANTED PLAINS 47 

great continental amphitheatre, and the amphitheatre of 
ocean beyond, silent, mysterious, the one as the other, yet 
full to the brim of nature's handiwork, musical with the 
voices of nature, beings reveling in the joys of life, revel- 
ing in the jaws of death, yet empty, we say, because the 
rapacious European man is not there to kill and eat, or 
to destroy. A waste of land and water, and all that 
therein is, if peradventure the white man cannot use it all. 

There they were these few short centuries ago, as 
nature made them. Nature, who made us all, and who 
filled the earth and sea with living things to kill and eat 
each other, and the European to kill and eat all. This we 
know because it is so, and because the white man, having 
no master on this earth, must incontinently fall to and 
master and kill each other. 

Were it not for this bad habit which men have of 
domestic destruction, a habit still in vogue among nations 
of the foremost civilization, such as was practised in the 
primitive days of savagism, these Plains might thousands 
of years ago have been stocked with humanity thicker 
than Europe contains, while if the Europeans, with civil- 
ization and Christianity, had become what some would 
consider reasonable, and stopped hacking each other in 
pieces while inventing machinery for expediting neigh- 
borly slaughter, many additions would ere this have had 
to be built out into the sea to give the people standing 
room, which would have been harder work and not half 
so pleasant as killing. 

Strange that man should be the only animal that makes 
war upon its kind. Had the savages of North America 
been content to live as the buffaloes live, they might have 
covered these Plains as the buffaloes covered them; in 
which case again there would have been too many men in 
the world, which would have made the task of their ex- 
termination more difficult, if indeed the Europeans them- 
selves had not been long since exterminated by the abor- 
iginal Americans. 



48 EETIiOSPECTION 

Great was the waste of the buffalo, the grandest animal 
of the Plains, having been for ages the food and clothing, 
the providence and protection of millions of humanity, 
serving God also in feeding the hungry wolf and the 
lonely catamount. Of the sixty millions of this noble beast 
which were rollicking over the prairie when the white man 
came there were scarcely six hundred living at the end of 
the century. Under new conditions the number is now 
slowly increasing. 

Thus the Plains were an enchanted land, a land of mys- 
tery and romance, full of toil and adventure, full of life 
and death, the perils of the wilderness only adding to its 
charm. 

Untenanted. No one there, no person and no thing that 
counts. Myriads of wild beasts were on the land, and 
birds and fishes in the air and water. Many bands of wild 
men roamed hither and thither, all rejoicing in life, all 
snarling in death, each striving to escape destruction while 
destroying the others. 

The savages are silent in their wars as in other things, 
no noise of guns or clash of steel, but only the death- 
rattle and scalp-halloo. Ages upon ages, like the fishes 
in the sea, they rollicked along, happy in multiplying their 
kind for others of their kind to destroy. 

Useless asking whence they came and when; useless 
asking why they kill; they were made so, as white men 
are so made. And as for age, they have been there ten 
hundred or ten million years; they may have been there 
always, whatever that should signify. Of their death we 
can predict with some certainty, for civilization blasts 
savagism ; the two cannot breathe the same air. 

Your true savage is not a subject for civilization. 
Once a savage he is always a savage. A veneer of culture 
does not constitute civilization. Centuries of use may im- 
prove his skill with the weapons of his ancestors, but he 
invents no new weapon. He carries the same spear, the 



MYSTERY OP THE UNTENANTED PLAINS 49 

same bow and arrow, the same tomahawk and knife that 
the ancient warriors of his people carried a thousand years 
ago, though iron may have taken the place of flint. The 
invention of a new instrument or agency when it comes 
must come as the precursor or product of civilization, which 
springs from another and a different germ dropped into 
the same or other soil, a germ instinct with the element of 
self-development. 

There is a large unoccupied waste of water in the south 
Pacific where might be placed a continent twice as large 
as South America and leave around it ample space for nav- 
igation. Doubtless land stood there once and may do so 
again. The place is now used to grow little fish for the 
big fish to eat. 

Whence it appears that the sea was not made for man 
but for fishes, of which it keeps fairly full notwithstand- 
ing the insatiate feedings one upon another. Then were 
the savages made for naught, and the wild beasts in their 
devourings, or only to be supplanted by creatures with a 
will and capacity for still greater devourings? And this 
civilized creature who has tamed the Plains, will he some 
time tame the sea, and then on sea and land continue for- 
ever his self -spoliation and beastly devourings? 

We cannot clear the ocean of its inhabitants as we have 
cleared the Plains, else we would; we would clear off and 
appropriate the sun and moon and stars if we were able; 
there is no limit to our greed. 

Very like the ocean were the treeless rolling lands of the 
fertile prairies, with their coarse grain feeding countless 
beasts to be served as food to other countless beasts. Then 
come the mountains, as one goes west, and after them 
the desert, then other mountains and deserts and valleys. 

East of the continental axis the low lying prairies roll 
eastward from its feet a thousand miles to the waters of 
the Mississippi system, whose fall is less than 1600 feet in 
their sluggish flow of over 3000 miles, the fertile soil capa- 



50 RETROSPECTION 

ble of feeding all Europe. On the western side the Pacific 
highlands, swells of table-lands and deserts, rich in miner- 
als and fertile enough for growing food with the artificial 
application of water. 

There were in the southwest the fierce Apaches, who 
under a famous chief brought formidable forces into the 
field; hundreds of tribes of nomadic Algonquins, chasing 
their perpetual enemies the Sioux, Foxes, and Iroquois 
around the great lakes; the Cheyennes and Blackfeet 
watching from their retreats in the mountains and along 
the streams the long line of emigrants in their toilsome 
journey; many there were like the Missouri, the Iowa, the 
Kansas, the Omahas, the Dakotas who gave their names 
to the white man's towns and states; then the Crows, Utes, 
and Shoshones farther west. 

Down from the far northeast many thousand moons 
ago came a great people, perhaps from somewhere, say the 
tower of Babel, by way of northern Europe to Iceland, 
Greenland, and Labrador, thence southwest through the 
valley of the Ohio and on to the New Mexico and to old 
Mexico, a thousand year pilgrimage, perhaps, leaving on 
the way mounds of various devices filled with arrow-heads 
and other implements, and on which great trees are grow- 
ing; also Casas Grandes, and towns and tenements of 
sun-dried brick, and other evidences of their former pres- 
ence. 

Gradually during the latter part of the seventeenth 
century the Northern Mystery began to disappear, not by 
inroads from the sea but from land excursions along the 
coast, thus making way for the expulsion of the greater 
Mystery of the Plains. 

For example, Pere Marquette passing down the Missis- 
sippi in 1673 noted the mouth of the Missouri, and wrote, 
"Through this I hope to reach the gulf of California, and 
thence the East Indies. ' ' Baron la Hontan, in the account 
of his famous imaginary journey to the far west in 1688, 



MYSTERY OF THE UNTENANTED PLAINS 51 

was obliged to retain the myth of the Northern Mystery 
with its Anian strait and flitting Quivira, though he had 
myths enough of his own at hand for substitution had he 
so desired. For only twenty -six years prior to the baron's 
alleged journey Governor Diego de Penalosa had made a 
trip to New Mexico in which he claimed to have reached 
the original Quivira somewhere to the northeast of 
Santa Fe. 

Padre Kino in his pious labors in Pimeria Alta became 
deeply interested in the Northern Mystery. With Captain 
Mange he visited the Gila and Colorado, and two years 
later, in 1701, stood with Salvatierra on the mainland shore 
of the upper gulf, in latitude 31° or 32° still discussing 
the questions whether or not California was an island. 

So late as 1768 Jefferys riddles his map of the northern 
part of North America with bays and straits, making of 
the country more than half water. Fuca strait is a 
broad waterway extending from the ocean to Hudson 
bay; another strait lies to the north of it, widened in the 
middle by the lake de Fonte. Anian and Quivira are 
given, as well as "Sierras Nevadas, 1542," "new Albion, " 
and "Mountains of Bright Stones." 

Entrances to this inland amphitheatre on every side 
were provided by nature. Nor were the Plains without 
their pathways. Roads there were, thousands of them 
thousands of years old, each significant of something, 
but to be read only by the initiated, roads along the rivers 
or to and from watering places, through mountain gate- 
ways and over sandy wastes; roads cut broad and deep 
into the tough earth or obliterated here and there by action 
of the elements. These tracks the traveller could find and 
follow for half his way across the continent. 

Trappers and fur-hunters were the first of European 
origin to break the spell; after them at intervals came 
the emigrant, with his long lines of ox-teams and hooded 
wagons, passing on to the western beyond, leaving the land 



52 RETROSPECTION 

in the same primeval stillness in which he had found it. 
Then came the settler, decades after it may be, and broke 
that stillness forever. 

When the great fur monopolies of New France fell in 
pieces private adventurers skirted the great lakes and 
percolated southward through the mountains. From the 
Montreal fair every summer many young men, fascinated 
by forest life, returned with the savages to their distant 
homes in the mountains or on the plains, and became 
almost as wild as their native associates, hunting, trapping, 
paddling canoes and roaming the woods. Thus came to 
the front the class of voyageurs and coureurs des hois 
which became a fur-hunting feature of the century. 

Movements in the fur trade were made in 1762 at New 
Orleans by Laclede, Maxan and company and at St. Louis 
by Auguste and Pierre Chouteau. Their operations 
carried them northward toward Michilimackinae rather 
than westward beyond the Missouri. The Northwest com- 
pany ruled in state at Fort William, on Lake Superior; 
their rivals were the Hudson Bay company in the north 
and northwest rather than the French in the south. 

Independence and St. Joseph sent American trappers 
up the Missouri and into Oregon, comparatively few of 
them finding their way along the Platte and into Utah and 
the great desert. The Missouri Fur company operated 
nearer home, chiefly in the Rocky mountains. As John 
Jacob Astor failed to carry out his project of a line of 
forts to the Pacific, the traffic of the intermediate plains 
was less in consequence, and left more to individual opera- 
tors, as Ashly, Sublette, James Bridger, and Jedediah 
Smith, the last named later conspicuous in the Santa Fe 
trade. Operating in the Colorado basin at one time were 
James P. Beckworth and Bill Williams, trappers and ex- 
plorers. 

Nothing was more significant of the primitive condi- 
tion of the Plains so late as 1832 than such expeditions, 
half military and half commercial, as those of Major 



MYSTERY OF THE UNTENANTED PLAINS 53 

Pilcher and Captain Bonneville. Pilcher's adventures took 
him to the upper Colorado; thence he trapped northward 
to Fort Colville, and after an absence of two years returned 
by way of the Athabasca, suffering severely meanwhile from 
famine and hostile natives. 

Captain Bonneville with a force of 110 men visited 
Utah, Nevada, and Oregon, sending his guide, Walker, with 
a division over the Sierra into California. So strong was 
the opposition he encountered in the Hudson Bay com- 
pany and others, and being inexperienced in both hunting 
and trading, the enterprise ended in failure. Another 
larger undertaking meeting with a similar result was that 
of Captain Wyeth. Thus these expeditions by their wide 
attempts and failures tended to discourage enterprise in 
that quarter and lock up the interior from development 
for some time longer. 



CHAPTER IV 

MIGRATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT 

THE New England colonists were a thrifty people. 
They preferred to labor with their hands rather than 
keep others to do it for them. The natives were averse 
to labor; the colonists had no desire to fight them; they 
wanted only that they should go farther back into the 
woods and keep out of the way. They did not care to 
engage them in fur-hunting, as in Canada, nor to employ 
them on plantations, as in Mexico. There were a few 
negro slaves at one time scattered among them, but human 
slavery was an institution that did not appeal to them. 
They were an agricultural people and preferred farming 
their lands in a moderate way themselves; when they re- 
quired help they called in a neighbor, and it was help, not 
servitude, that rendered the assistance. The hired man 
sat at the table with them, and it may be married the 
daughter. 

Children came to them; they learned to love their New 
England home; they loved their freedom and enjoyed the 
exercise on their own behalf of the persecutions from which 
they had fled. 

This for a time. Then as they cleared away the trees 
and laid bare the scanty soil, the stones grew heavier as 
they gathered them for fencing, and their minds reverted 
to the rich lands to the westward where their toil should 
secure better results. 

In Virginia it was different; the gentlemen planters 
were not accustomed to manual labor. Their sons regarded 
work as beneath them, and it was left to imported African 

54 



MIGRATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT 55 

slaves and the poor white trash who owned no land, which 
rendered labor still more degrading. Slavery flourished; 
larger plantations were wanted for cotton, and the tobacco 
plant soon exhausted the soil ; so the southern colonists also 
turned their eyes westward, thinking all the while how 
best to rid the land of the red man. 

Meanwhile society in the south became quite aristo- 
cratic; the planters built sumptuous homes, and lived 
regally, returns from their cotton and tobacco bringing 
them all the requirements of pomp and luxury. They 
arrayed themselves in the paraphernalia of wealth, the 
men in three-cornered hats, velvet waistcoats, and knee 
breeches, the women in stiff brocades, hoop skirts, feathers, 
and furbelows. 

Had the Mayflower pilgrims made their settlement at 
Jamestown, and had the gentlemen adventurers from Eng- 
land landed on Plymouth rock, history would have a dif- 
ferent tale to tell. 

Independence secured, the birth of a new nation ac- 
complished, and the active mind of the American people 
took a look around to see what next should be done. The 
view was dim from the vastness of its surroundings. New 
conditions brought new trains of thought. Statesmen and 
business men were alike perplexed. There was practically 
no currency in the country, no proper measure of values, 
and no way of determining what things were worth even 
if money had been plentiful. On one side of the ocean 
were the old homes of the colonists, the land of their fore- 
fathers, overcrowded with people, the poor hustled aside 
by the rich, the weak preyed upon by the strong. On the 
other side were lands of limitless vistas, all their own, 
dropped down upon them as from the sky. 

A spirit of conservatism fell upon them, not quite 
natural and by no means enduring. They were timid yet 
curious. Like a maiden on the verge of matrimony they 
were fascinated by the unknown and yet repelled by the 



56 RETROSPECTION 

inevitable. They thought of where they might go and 
what they might do ; they thought of the application of in- 
dustry to their wild domain, of farms and factories, of un- 
built cities supplanting transitory wigwams. 

Small bands of neighbors crossed the Alleghanies and 
penetrated north and south and west. The great valley of 
the Ohio, the first New World tribute won from France, 
was as yet but little known, and the wooded hills and rich 
valley lands compelled their scrutiny. 

Beyond the Mississippi the government sent out ex- 
peditions to see and report what this Louisiana land was 
like, — Lewis and Clarke, and Long, and Pike. The border 
lines of Mexico were vague; already her hold on Texas 
was weakening. On the Pacific, the forty-second parallel 
should be her limit. The government explorers saw much, 
but there was more which they did not see. 

These new Americans had their work before them; 
they had an empire to build and they must be about it. 
Land was their basis of economic prosperity. In the old 
country land was limited and difficult for the poor man 
to obtain, but here it was almost free. Nothing so valu-. 
able and yet nothing so cheap. The old ideals must be 
readjusted to fit new conditions. The hesitancy, which 
indeed was nothing more than proper reflection, soon 
passed away as potential paths of prosperity appeared lead- 
ing westward. 

On one side was the old land and the old life, on the 
other an unexplored world of romance. During the first 
hundred years of colonial occupation little attention was 
given to metes and bounds. There was land enough for 
all. The New Englanders were restless. The Dutch at 
New Netherland had only to sail up their beautiful Hud- 
son to a charming country beyond. The Friends were, 
quite content with the allotments of their great chief, 
while the Virginians, the most migratory of all the colon-, 
ists, could drop down into the Carolinas should they de-, 
sire a change. 



MIGRATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT 57 

As time passed by many began to consider yet more 
earnestly their limitations on the coast, and to think more 
of the rich valley of the Ohio which still served the purpose 
only of a French and Indian hunting ground, having so 
remained since the fall of France in America, which gave 
England the entire country back to the Mississippi. The 
several colonies were quite ready to take possession of 
these newly acquired lands, since some one must own them, 
and parcel them out among themselves, giving to each a 
strip westward equal in width to its ocean frontage. As 
Massachusetts then comprised the entire northern end of 
New England abutting on the province of Quebec, created 
by the English king for the occupation of his new French 
subjects, the Saint Lawrence and the lakes still interven- 
ing, she was obliged to make the Detroit river the initial 
point of her western possessions, carrying the northern 
boundary line up to the middle of Lake Michigan. 

Connecticut came next with a claim covering parts of 
what are now Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Then followed 
Virginia marking out a large area which included Ken- 
tucky. In like manner the Carolinas claimed Tennessee 
and Georgia, all that was left down to Florida, which was 
still occupied by the Spaniards. After the organization 
of the federal union the boundaries of the several states 
were defined, and all the surplus territories heretofore 
claimed by them were ceded to the United States, thus 
becoming federal domain. 

It was natural enough that in their migrations west- 
ward the inhabitants of the original states should keep for 
the most part each along its own lines of latitude, climate 
and other conditions being more like those of their own 
homes than were to be found north or south of those lines. 
Thus it was that the northern part of the Ohio valley was 
settled largely from New England. Indiana was tinc- 
tured with driftings upward from the south, which 
indications were yet more pronounced in Illinois, though 



58 RETROSPECTION 

cotton tobacco and slavery never flourished in the lake 
states. 

Westward migration thus made its first halt in the 
valley of the Ohio, where it rested half a century. Be- 
yond the Mississippi another half century was occupied in 
planting settlements and making states in the region ex- 
tending back to the Rocky mountains, and in looking after 
California and her gold. 

With the acquisition and occupation of the Mississippi 
valley the feeling prevailed that the limit had been 
reached. The Alleghanies and the great lakes were at 
first regarded the proper and natural western boundary, 
between which and the Atlantic was ample room for the 
expansion of a great nation. Compared with European 
powers its area was larger than the largest of all save 
Russia, whose vast holdings were an element of weakness 
rather than strength. Fortunately the Americans did not 
realize all that was before them, else they might have 
shrunk from responsibilities to which they were not yet 
accustomed. But human progress at best is but a blind 
stumble forward; w r e work for the present while building 
for the future. Every decade of the century has its own 
period of transition, and it is not easy to say which is the 
most important. 

A Yankee schoolmaster, in 1792, invented a machine 
to pick the seeds from cotton, and Eli Whitney's cotton 
gin doubled the value and importance twice over of half 
the nation's greatest industry. 

Robert Fulton, in 1807, attached to the sides of his 
Hudson river boat paddle-wheels driven by steam, and 
soon on all the great rivers and lakes of the United States 
were steamboats, stirring up traffic and carrying civiliza- 
tion to remote regions. In 1819 the steamer Savannah 
crossed the Atlantic, and behold! a hundred years later 
a hundred king's palaces upon the water, two hundred 
mighty vessels of war, a thousand transportation ships, all 



MIGRATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT 59 

threading the paths of ocean as if following the streets of 
a city. 

In 1831 cars were drawn by a locomotive over fifteen 
miles of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. At this time 
there were in all, horse and steam, thirty-two miles of 
railroad in the United States; three quarters of a century 
later, there were of horse, steam, and electric roads more 
than 250,000 miles. 

In 1837 Samuel Morse came forward with his tele- 
graph, which was the beginning, after Benjamin Frank- 
lin's kite-flying, of applied electricity, which led to those 
wonderful discoveries under Edison. Then, just where 
the century hinges, within little more than a brief decade, 
we capture California, scoop up millions of gold, fight to 
a finish a war for the Union, giving up thereto a million of 
the finest young men north and south that ever lived, 
emancipated and enfranchised four millions of slaves, 
practically placed their masters in subjection to them, 

and then ! Then what? A carnival of crime, and 

which alas! is not yet ended. 

Looking back over the first half of the century under 
consideration times may seem dull, methods crude, and 
progress slow. But in truth, great as were the works of 
the second half, the works of the first half were relatively 
greater. For it was then that was conceived and brought 
forth by the American people certain industrial achieve- 
ments, to say nothing of politics and society, which ex- 
erted a powerful influence upon the advancement of the 
country in peace and prosperity, and which, considering 
the time and place, and the result of human effort with 
the resources at command, may be likened to work on the 
pyramids of Egypt or the great wall of China. These 
enterprises were the construction during the years 1806 
to 1838, of a national turnpike 834 miles in length, from 
Fort Cumberland on the Potomac through Ohio, Indiana, 
and Illinois to Jefferson city, Missouri; the Erie canal, in 
1817-25, from the Hudson river to Lake Erie; with other 



60 RETROSPECTION 

important toll roads and canals, and the opening of rivers 
and lakes to steam navigation. 

An important part in the many and widespread mi- 
grations was played by these and other historic highways, 
the wagon-roads and canals through and around the Ap- 
palachian range, as the Braddock road from the Potomac 
to the Monongahela, which for a time was the only high- 
way into the upper Ohio country, and the most important 
thoroughfare into the west. 

Soon after the revolutionary war the Pennsylvania state 
wagon-road, known as the old Glade road, was built through 
the glades of Pennsylvania, changing Fort Duquesne to 
Fort Pitt, and becoming an important factor in the ex- 
pansive movement that followed. 

The widening of the Delaware Nemacolin's path by 
Washington in 1754 exercised a marked influence on what 
followed. Boone's wilderness road to Kentucky from 
Virginia through Cumberland gap was one of the most 
difficult to achieve of any, and at the same time the most 
important, as it opened to the Atlantic seaboard the great 
west and made possible the settling of Kentucky. The 
social movement thus accomplished was one of the marvels 
of the eighteenth century. 

Though for the most part long since forgotten the 
military roads of the Mississippi basin after serving their 
purpose in the conquest of the old northwest proved im- 
portant in the subsequent settlement of the country. 

An extraordinary spasm of emigration, brief but power- 
ful, broke out just prior to the purchase of Louisiana, 
owing to the brilliant prospects in that region incident to 
the close of the Indian wars and the possible acquisition of 
'a foothold in that country by the United States. 

A commerce of the prairies with Mexico set in over 
the Santa Fe* trail while Santa Fe was yet in Mexico. 

Already at the opening year of the century the water- 
ways of westward expansion had been sought out and 



MIGRATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT 61 

proved, and the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Missouri 
became the great highways of emigration. Then came th« 
great canals, the Chesapeake and the Ohio, the Pennsyl- 
vania and the Erie. And then the Cumberland turnpike, 
the first national road, using in its construction whatever 
was available from the Washington and Braddock roads, 
and carrying into the west when completed thousands of 
aspirants for greater things with all their wealth of in- 
tellect, energy, and material effects. 

The Cumberland national road was constructed by 
clearing of trees a space sixty feet wide, in the middle 
of which thirty feet were leveled, and in the middle of 
the thirty feet a strip twenty feet wide was overlaid with 
crushed stone eighteen inches thick in the centre, sloping 
to twelve inches on either side. The largest pieces of the 
broken stone were seven inches in diameter for the bottom 
and three inches at the top. Tolls were collected over the 
greater part of the road. 

Ninety and more appropriations, state and congres- 
sional, were required to raise the requisite ten or twelve 
millions, as difficult a matter and imposing a greater 
burden upon the people than any four hundred million 
Panama canal appropriation of the present day. 

Over this thoroughfare poured a stream of population, 
thousands from Europe as well as those from the Atlantic 
states, which, percolating through the minor channels of 
intercommunication, multiplied the midcontinent inhabi- 
tants, and overspreading the plains beyond crossed the 
mountains and deserts, finally debouching upon the golden 
shores of the Pacific. 

All along the length of it, like the paved street of a 
city cut through the wilds of country, were seen families 
and associations rolling their great wagons westward with 
ease and comfort, the men attended by women and chil- 
dren, mounted and on foot, with cows and sheep and 
chickens, and all the concomitants of settlement and civili- 
zation, meeting on the way droves of fat cattle, and wagons 



62 RETROSPECTION 

piled high with food products for the markets of the east. 
For this highway of happiness, the medium of wealth and 
progress at a critical juncture in the development of the 
country, thanks are due in greater part to Henry Clay and 
Albert Gallatin. 

The Erie canal, then the largest in the world, and of 
which Governor Clinton of New York was father, stimu- 
lated progress at the east and in the lake region by bring- 
ing the Atlantic into water communication with the great 
inland seas. The effect on New York city was marvelous, 
causing it to shoot forward rapidly in population past 
Philadelphia, doubling the distance in 1830, trebling it by 
1840, and having four times the population of the Quaker 
city in 1850. Meanwhile manufactures developed in New 
England, and transportation was further facilitated by the 
construction of other wagon-roads and canals. 

A thousand flat-boats and barges floated down the Ohio 
carrying empire to the prairie-lands beyond the Mississip- 
pi. These were followed by the steamboat, which marked 
an era in midcontinent progress. Steamboating on the 
Mississippi, all in the roaring forties, the tales that are 
told! — tales of racing, betting, drinking, a plantation lost 
and won at a single sitting, tales of love and crime, of 
broken heads and broken hearts. 

As an epoch in the evolution of our commonwealth, the 
pathways of the Plains, their utilization and obliteration, 
will ever stand unique. A single decade defines the period, 
from 1846 to 1856, and includes the hegira overland, to 
which indeed another ten years may be added for exploita- 
tion and yet further development. 

The time is somewhat long it is true, to serve as a 
turning point in our country's short history, were it not 
that during this period events were introduced which made 
the difference in the end as between a rather common- 
place American republic and a great nation potential in 
the affairs of the world. 



MIGRATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT 63 

A great nation, the greatest of nations, though it was 
some time before we found it out, some time before the 
other nations found it out, though the latter may have 
been first to realize the situation. 

First there was the war with Mexico. Looking back to 
that time we were indeed, as it seems to us now, a petty 
power, with no small bluster of fledgeling generals and 
captains going to war with what we knew to be a weaker 
fellow than ourselves, and for the noble purpose of giving 
to southern chivalry more slave territory, though the great 
state of Texas had but just been secured to the south for 
that purpose. 

The Mexican war. Oh, yes! we fought and bled and 
died for our country there, at Monterey and Chapultepec, 
and the rabble that won easy victories over the half-clad, 
ill-armed, and ill-officered Mexicans have been boasting of 
it and drawing pensions ever since. However this may be 
the result brought us California; California brought us 
gold; gold brought us to the attention of the world, and 
to our Pacific shores a good class of representatives from 
all the nations, many of whom remained, and after the 
first flush of mining fever was over turned their attention 
to finance, merchandise, and agriculture, lending their aid 
to the upbuilding of a commonwealth of which they were 
among the most valued members. 

Then came the war for the Union, which brought an 
end to slavery, and citizenship to some millions of an alien 
servile race. And graft came also, glorious graft! Our 
country, great in all things, greatest of all in graft; and 
the monster is still with us. 

To return to our pathways of the Plains, whose oblitera- 
tion wipes out the only record coming to us of the ages 
of darkness, and whose utilization marks the incoming of 
another race with other life objects in view. Here was a 
vast amphitheatre lying between the two greatest oceans 
edged by civilization but wild within. In this wilderness 



64 RETROSPECTION 

was little that was visible of human life or design. In the 
vicinity of the streams, running mostly east and west, 
were clearly marked paths, or series of paths, sometimes 
in single ruts of two or three feet in depth, sometimes in 
broad roadways a hundred feet in width. 

These pathways extended at intervals across the conti- 
nent for a thousand or two thousand miles, over plains, 
mountains, and deserts, the continuity frequently broken 
but only to be resumed, and always in the main trending 
east and west. Lateral lines of lesser mark ran off to north 
and south, but soon terminating in the hills, or in some 
woods, or in grassy meadows; there were no main aborigi- 
nal thoroughfares extending north and south. 

Plainly these roadways were first made by the wild 
beasts, notably by buffalo in their daily stampede for water. 
Then they were used by the Indians, then by the fur-hunters, 
and finally by the wagon-driving emigrants, the overland 
stage, the pony express riders, and the railways. 

Overland motorists are becoming interested in these 
ancient pathways, which will doubtless exercise an in- 
fluence in the proposed construction of a national auto- 
mobile highway across the continent, just as the attention 
of European motorists was attracted by the Roman roads 
in England, begun by Julius Caesar and afterward ex- 
tended into a network covering the whole country with a 
line 2500 miles in length. 

Scenes of the century pass through the mind with 
transformations as startling in their rapidity as they are 
inexorable in their decrees. As something present they 
are romance ; as something past, a dream. 

A wide spread of sage-brush desert banked on the east 
by mountains, wooded or treeless, and on the other sides 
by more desert, with salty lakes, and sluggish streams, and 
alkaline water-holes, and yet other far away mountains. 
Oases here and there, with fresh-water wells, and an opal- 
esque sky spreading across the cactus plain the seductive 



MIGRATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT 65 

mirage, while beyond are brown hills rolling in the pellu- 
cid air. 

A garden of the gods with far away stretches of land 
and water, of mountain foliage and burning plain under a 
low-lying sun, with its unclad humanity moving among 
strangely named beasts and plucking the unforbidden fruit. 
A hundred different tribes with a hundred different faiths 
and languages and customs, each with an unwritten history 
running back into an eternity of darkness for thousands 
of years, but now to be rudely terminated, nations thrust 
out over the brink, and all primeval life strangled. 

This is to make room for the second part, an ethnic 
miracle here to be wrought, not only the incoming of a 
new race, but the creation of a new race, the west- Ameri- 
can man, quite as different from the east- American as from 
the southerner. 

Wide over these plains we see nothing to mark the 
presence of any former people; we see nothing to denote 
the migrations of any present humanity save these fine 
interlacing lines denoting the pathways of nature, and the 
line of earth-work before mentioned slanting down from 
Labrador to western Mexico. 

Game of all sorts was there, each kind choosing its 
own habitat. Elk and deer in the mountains, antelope 
gliding gracefully over the rolling prairie, horses broken 
loose from Mexico that freedom had made wild, herds of 
bellowing buffalo stampeding at evening in a cloud of 
dust down to the river to drink. With the wild beasts 
w r ere mingled wild men, while between all crafty fortune- 
hunters threaded their dangerous way to spy out the land 
and gather from its hidden treasures. 

This continental interior, regarded at first as a worthless 
domain, and called in various parts bad lands, waste 
lands, great American desert, and the like, was found on 
exploitation to be full of natural wealth, gold silver and 
copper, iron and coal, stately forests and succulent grasses. 
The soil which on the surface appeared like drifted sand 



66 RETROSPECTION 

in the sage-brush, was found upon the application of water 
to be rich in alluvium, and fertile beyond belief. Even 
in the denuded mountain region emigrant stock reduced 
to a skeleton and turned loose in the autumn to die, found 
under the snow which they learned to scrape away with 
nose and feet, and also where the wind had laid bare the 
ground, a dry nutritious grass which brought out the ani- 
mals in the spring to the eyes of their astonished owners 
sleek and fat, and opened the way to those great cattle- 
ranges which brought wealth to so many. Each of these 
several industries evolved a new order of sovereign men, 
and the mountains became alive with magnates. 

After 1830 the paths of the fur-hunters were relegated 
back into the hills, and the wagons of the emigrants be- 
gan to mark out roads for wheeled vehicles over the 
prairie, to be followed forty years later by the railroads. 
It was not an uncommon occurrence in early railroading 
experience for trains to stop to let pass a stampeding herd 
of buffalo, while shooting game from the car window was 
sometimes permitted. 

Along the too often waterless wagon-trails to Oregon 
in the early forties and to California in the early fifties, 
poured a stream of west-bound emigrants seeking land 
and gold and adventure. Long lines of creaking prairie 
schooners behind strings of yoked oxen, or of mixed teams 
of mules, horses, and cows, with piled-up household para- 
phernalia, all of their belongings, attended by women and 
children, men and boys, on foot and horseback, rolled out 
from Independence and St. Joseph into the wooded border- 
land, and on into the broad prairies, over the snow-clad 
mountains through the torrid heat of the desert, with its 
sage-brush foliage, and on to the shores of the Pacific, 
where the tide of travel was thrown back upon itself and 
the hardy adventurers, scattering themselves up and down 
the coast, were forced to work out their destiny without 
further cavil. 

For material progression has ever been toward the west, 



MIGRATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT 67 

the intellectual closely attendant, and the ultimate west 
attained, there comes the unfolding of a new civilization, 
a western development. There is no eastern civilization; 
it is long since dead. Hence on reaching the eastern shore 
of the Pacific, westward civilization ceased to be migratory. 
The old East is met by the new West, and comes to it to 
school; and the new West still has before it the greatest 
work ever undertaken by man, the intellectual conquest 
and economic reduction of the half -civilized peoples border- 
ing this mightiest of oceans. 

The routes overland are essentially the same to-day as 
were those marked out first by the natives and the fur- 
hunters, and later followed by emigrant-wagons, stages, 
and steam-cars. 

Fifty years before Lewis and Clarke set out to explore 
the region purchased from Napoleon, the scientific savage 
Moncacht Ape had made the same journey, up the Missouri 
and down the Columbia, an account of which is given by 
the French savant Le Page du Pratz. Not long after- 
ward Jonathan Carver made his way into the land of the 
Dacotahs, and mapped, the Shining mountains veined with 
gold, the River of the West flowing into the Western sea, 
and New Year's Haven, as he called the bay of 
San Francisco. 

In 1745, and again in 1776, England offered a reward 
of £20,000 for the discovery by a British ship of a strait 
from Hudson bay to the Pacific, and the land journeys of 
Hearne and Mackenzie followed. 

At the same time Lieutenant Pike and Major Long 
made expeditions to the Rocky mountains for the United 
States, as before stated. All along down the lines of the 
great ranges routes were established through the passes, 
as at Peace river, Kootenai, Cajon, Klamath, South pass, 
Wahsatch, Mimbres, Tehuantepec, and scores of others. 

From the Missouri river the Oregon and California 
emigrants took the same trail to Fort Hall, whence the 



68 RETROSPECTION 

California-bound followed the direction of the Goose creek 
mountains, and of the Goose creek and Raft river branches 
of Snake river to the rim of the Great Salt lake basin, 
and by an easy though desert road to the sources of the 
Humboldt near Humboldt wells. The rush of emigrants 
over the Oregon trail in 1845 proved an important factor 
in securing that region to the United States. 

After the Mormons had made their way into Salt Lake 
valley, Weber pass was found, and through it the road 
went from South pass to Salt Lake by a more direct route 
than by the old trapper trail via Fort Hall. The Cali- 
fornia-bound who rested at Salt Lake sought the traverse 
from the Malade valley along the rim of the basin, strik- 
ing the old California road from Fort Hall at the source 
of Raft river, following up that stream and then over the 
Humboldt divide. 

There w r ere many roads and passes in the south while 
yet California was a territory of Mexico. Conspicuous 
among them the Santa Fe trail, as gay with traffic and 
equipage as the treasure-train road across the Panama 
isthmus. Santa Fe was reached by wagon road from In- 
dependence, the trail thence to Los Angeles bearing north- 
west by the Calinas and Wahsatch mountains, and through 
the Cajon pass to San Bernardino. Below this was the 
Zuiii road from Santa Fe to Albuquerque and the Gila 
road by Apache pass. 

The influence of natural conditions on routes and settle- 
hments was paramount. Water and grass were of the first 
consideration, after these altitude, roughness, and woodi- 
ness were taken into account. The emigrant road through 
the Rocky mountains to Oregon was in open country most 
of the way, with wooded hills in the distance. 

The desert road to California, rendered less dangerous 
by the Humboldt river, was marked out by Walker, chief 
of the notable Bonneville expedition in 1833, an actual 
path-maker, Fremont who followed in his footsteps being 
at best but a path-finder, as he has rightly been designated. 



MIGRATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT 69 

The Oregonians who accompanied Marshall to Cali- 
fornia, and there made the gold-discovery, were not gov- 
erned by considerations of wagoning, and simply retraced 
the trail of the California and Oregon herders with pack- 
animals. 

Sutter had not long been established in the Sacramento 
valley before discovering the advantages of the northern 
and southern routes for a road from the east, as he pointed 
out to Wilkes on his visit to California in 1841. 

When the Central Pacific railroad was begun at Sacra- 
mento the wagon-road which led up to the ridge forming 
the northern rim of the American river basin was followed 
instead of that ascending the valley of that river. The 
wagon-road was completed through Donner pass several 
years before the railroad was built, and was known at 
that time as the Dutch Flat and Virginia city wagon-road. 

In the fifties railroad extension brought new economic 
conditions and a marked intellectual expansion. In the 
sixties were moral and financial revolutions, arising notably 
from the creeping in of political and commercial corrup- 
tion. 

For half a century after the Louisiana purchase, and for 
ten or twenty years after the acquisition of the California 
country, the Plains were held by their aboriginal inhabi- 
tants, whose normal attitude was one of hostility, first as 
among themselves, and always in regard to strangers who 
entered their domain.' Ever watchful, ever alert, like the 
wild beast that shared their home, they perforce must 
guard their lives night and day, without cessation, from 
the beginning to the end. 

Among the habitants of this region was 'the same 
physical uniformity, modified by individual environment, 
to be found throughout the two Americas, the same differ- 
ence from all other peoples with the same likeness to each 
other. Yet in no other quarter could greater disparity 
be found than between the Iroquois and Seminoles of the 



70 RETROSPECTION 

east and the western Shoshone of the Nevada desert and 
the nameless Digger of the California coast. 

The Chinooks of the Columbia were mild and intelli- 
gent as compared with the fierce Apaches of Arizona and 
New Mexico and the roving Comanches of Texas, while 
the Sioux of the Missouri and the Zimi of the Colorado 
differ still further in their ways, yet all with resemblances 
enough to make of them one people. 

By far the largest of American migrations in a single 
body was that of the Mormons to Utah. The movement 
was not unlike that of the Puritans from England and 
Holland; the cause, religious and social persecution; the 
result a new and flourishing commonwealth established in 
a desert country. 

It was a stirring eventuality in overland travel, the 
presence of the Saints in Utah, by whose door the emigrant 
trails led. Driven from their several abiding places at 
the east, they had longed for a resting-place in a land 
beyond the limits of the United States. In pursuance of 
this desire they had turned their face westward. There 
were islands in the Pacific; the California country of which 
Utah was a part belonged to Mexico, though the war was 
now tamely raging which was to result in its dismember- 
ment. 

It was the spring of 1846, and they set forth to the 
number of 12,000 in three divisions, their objective point, 
or rendezvous, being as yet undetermined. One detach- 
ment sailed in the ship Brooklyn from New York in charge 
of Elder Samuel Brannan ; another detachment was formed 
into a Mormon battalion, and took the Santa Fe trail to 
fight battles for the people who had cast them out; the 
main body crossed the plains from Omaha in 800 wagons 
under Brigham Young, who as he entered the valley of 
the Great Salt lake, said "Here we will rest; God so wills 
it." And he sent word to all his people to come to him 
there. 



MIGRATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT 71 

But meanwhile changes had occurred. The Mormon 
battalion were surprised on reaching San Diego to see 
the American flag flying there. Elder Brannan after touch- 
ing at the Hawaiian islands came to San Francisco and 
set his Saints at raising grain on the San Joaquin. Some 
of them were digging at the tail-race of Sutter's mill 
when Marshall found gold. Then broke forth bedlam in- 
deed among the brethren. They called the place Mormon 
bar where they could pick it up by the handful, Elder 
Samuel standing by taking tithes. 

In vain Brigham called, they would not come. Gold 
was a stronger magnet than godliness. Some of them 
later, either filled to repletion or broken on the wheel of 
misfortune, made their way to the City of the Saints, but 
most of them turned renegade. 

Elder Brannan gathered an ample harvest, none of 
which ever entered the valley of the Saints' Rest. Saint 
Sam was now a convert to Calif ornianism. Finally one 
of the innocents picked up the courage to ask a lawyer, 
* ' How much longer can brother Brannan collect tithes from 
us ? " ' ' Just as long as you are fools enough to pay them, ' ' 
was the reply. 

Sam was well satisfied, however, having by this time 
scraped together a fortune. It was no small thing to have 
two or three hundred able bodied men, obedient to his call, 
to reap the first crop from rich placers around Coloma, and 
Sam blossomed out into San Francisco's first magnate. 

Everybody called him Sam, and smiled at his late 
following of polygamous saints. For a time he had 
more ready money than any other man in California. He 
sent to China for chiseled stone and set up several four- 
story granite front structures on Montgomery street, which 
rose up out of the mud, great pillars of prosperity, the 
wonder and envy of the home-returning diggers. 

He went in for banks, for express companies, for 
gambling emporiums. He learned to out-do in blasphemy 
Brigham Young, who from his great tabernacle on the 



72 RETROSPECTION 

mountain heights was hurling far-reaching maledictions 
against the United States and all therein, even while he 
was honored by said states with an appointment as gov- 
ernor of the territory. At length Sam took to farms and 
town-building, and finally came to grief. Sam laid out 
the springs of Calistoga, when, alas! absinthe caught and 
laid out Sam. 

After the Mormon exodus from Illinois, came to Utah 
that constant succession of caravans which were enticed 
westward by California gold. The fierce antagonisms 
already existing were intensified by the abusive language 
of the emigrants, and a disposition on the part of the 
Mormons to take advantage of the travellers' necessities. 

The valley of the Great Salt lake was well situated as 
a half-way house between the Missouri river and the Pa- 
cific coast. The plains and great divide had been traversed 
by the weary emigrants, the desert and Sierra yet re- 
mained. The Mormons were on the ground two years be- 
fore the heaviest travel to Oregon and California had be- 
gun, time sufficient to plant and harvest enough and to spare. 
Amicable treatment and fair exchange were to the ad- 
vantage of both. The emigrants wanted rest and refresh- 
ments for themselves and cattle; the Mormons, poor and 
lacking everything, were glad to get whatever the emi- 
grants could spare. Both people were likewise in the main 
honest, kind-hearted, and thrifty. 

But the demons of prejudice and hate had become so 
fastened on all concerned that they could not meet and 
part in peace. The emigrants swore loudly and were 
abusive, the Saints were secretive and retaliatory. And 
all along the way, at both ends of the line, coming and 
going, tales of imposition and reprisal kept alive the en- 
mity, so that theft and murder on both sides were not of 
uncommon occurrence. 

The tragic story of Mountain meadow massacre is well 
known, but there are many unrecorded fatalities charged 



MIGRATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT 73 

to the Indians in which none but white men were engaged. 
It is safe to say, however, that there never has been a time 
when peaceable travellers, behaving themselves and attend- 
ing only to their own affairs, were not safe from outrage in 
Utah. 



CHAPTER V 

SOME OHIO YANKEES 

AMONG the many settlements beyond the Alleghanies 
was that of Granville, Ohio, one of the brightest of 
the New England colonies planted in this western wilder- 
ness. It was somewhat different from the many similar 
swarmings from the Atlantic seaboard, straggling along 
down between the great lakes and the gulf, a class by itself, 
and a trifle more backward, perhaps, than some of the 
others to join later in the great amalgamations of the 
Mississippi valley. 

While the followers of Daniel Boone were making their 
way along the wilderness road from the exhausted tobacco 
fields of Virginia through Cumberland gap into the blue 
grass region of Kentucky, where a Virginia court with 
courthouse jury-rooms and jail had been established since 
1776, restless New Englanders were turning attention to 
their possessions in the valley of the Ohio and along the 
lakes. 

Characteristic of the time and place a story is told of 
a little Massachusetts boy who was out on a rocky hillside 
one day helping with the planting. Presently he was ob- 
served quietly crying, as if with vexation. "What is the 
matter, my son?" asked the father. "I can't get dirt 
enough to cover the corn ! ' ' was the reply. Thereupon that 
father resolved to .go to some country where there was more 
dirt to the acre. 

All along the Atlantic seaboard, in all the states north 
and south, emigrating companies were formed, and soon 
the entire country east of the Mississippi was dotted with 

74 



SOME OHIO YANKEES 75 

settlements. In 1787 was organized at Ipswich, Massa- 
chusetts, the Ohio Association, and the colony of Marietta 
was established on the Ohio at the Muskingum. For the 
nominal price of seventy cents an acre the associates 
secured from the United States north of the Ohio a million 
acres, with a bill of rights guaranteeing freedom of re- 
ligion ; rights of person and property ; fair treatment of 
the Indians ; no slavery, but fugitive slaves to be returned, 
which last stipulation the people of Ohio gave themselves 
little concern about. The price per acre was several times 
lessened by the acceptation in payment of government 
bounty land certificates, which fell at times as low in price 
as twenty-three cents on the dollar ; so that in reality large 
blocks of land passed into the possession of the settlers at 
as low a rate as ten cents an acre. 

Three million acres were secured for the Society of the 
Scioto, and emigrants brought from France to serve as 
colonists. Some of this land was sold to Massachusetts 
people, notably to a company from Granville of that state, 
$1.67 an acre being the price paid. But notwithstanding 
these several settlements, and many others from New Eng- 
land, more than half of the Ohio valley was finally occu- 
pied by people from Pennsylvania and Virginia. 

In 1803 Ohio was created a state, with one section of 
land free in each township for schools, and land hitherto 
bought from the United States for settlement to be exempt 
from taxation for four years 

At Granville, Massachusetts, in 1804, was organized the 
Licking Land company. Being neighbors living in a 
small village the members and their families were well 
known to each other, and being of like faith customs and 
traditions, harmony and happiness resulted. It was a 
thoughtful and thrifty community, with an intelligent 
understanding of all questions of the day, firm convic- 
tions and fixed principles, and rather high ideals, though 
tinctured with the fanaticism of the time. 

Although it was now nearly two hundred years since 



76 RETROSPECTION 

the Mayflower came, the incidents of that coming, as well 
as subsequent events, stood as clearly denned in their 
minds as if they were of yesterday. 

The business of the Licking Land company began with 
the payment by each member of eight dollars for expenses 
of viewing and selection. Meetings were held and details 
discussed from time to time during the year, until a thor- 
ough understanding existed as to life and occupation in 
their new home. In all this the men's faces wore an aspect 
of serious concern, the wives and grown up children giv- 
ing intelligent sympathy and assistance. 

At length they were ready to start. All were neatly 
but plainly clad, and the household effects were carefully 
bestowed in large covered wagons to be drawn by six or 
eight stout horses or twice that number of oxen. All their 
belongings were useful and of good quality; wagons, har- 
ness, and horses of the best. 

The caravan presented quite an imposing appearance 
as it swept down through darkest Pennsylvania, bringing 
to the doors of their dwellings the mild-eyed Quaker and 
the stout German housewife, the urchins shouting ''The 
Yankees are coming! The Yankees are coming !" 

It was essentially a Massachusetts association, named 
for the Granville of that state, though, it welcomed as one 
with itself a fair contingent from Vermont. The site 
chosen was charming, as in common with their cousins of 
Boston they had an eye for the beautiful — a tract of choice 
hill and valley land, "the hills for health and the valleys 
for cultivation" as they expressed it; malaria in the form 
of fever and ague to be specially guarded against. Though 
hitherto unknown to the aborigines, like most of the white 
man's ailments, it was common to all new settlements, and 
especially virulent among the sand eruptions and sunken 
forests along the Mississippi river. 

The Granville people took possession of their Scioto 
purchase in 1805. Two years later Granville township 



SOME OHIO YANKEES 77 

was formed, and in 1808 Licking county was proclaimed, 
so called from the deer licks in the vicinity. The township 
tract was five miles square; in the middle of it was laid 
out the town with 100-acre farms around it. 

In this Ohio Granville met and married Ashley Ban- 
croft and Lucy Howe, the former from Massachusetts the 
latter from Vermont, and there was born from this union 
on the 5th of May, 1832, Hubert Howe Bancroft, the 
writer of these annals, sensitive and shy as a boy, without 
sufficient assurance for any thing very good or very bad; 
as a man much the same — and that is all. 

They called the land new, and so it was new to them, 
though in truth a thousand years older than Columbus, as 
shown by the year-marks of trees standing on the fantastic 
earth-mounds in the forms of eagles, alligators, squares, 
half-moons, intermingled with fragments of aboriginal 
weapons, cooking utensils, and stone walls, which adorned 
the hill-tops of this township, marking the sometime pres- 
ence of a departed people unknown by and apparently un- 
related to the native Shawnees that the Europeans found 
there. 

A wild, hilly, thickly wooded section adjoining the New 
Englanders was secured for a trifle by a Welshman, who 
planted there some of his people, an honest, thrifty race, 
the region being known thereafter as the Welsh hills. 

An early experience of the writer was a visit to these 
people, invited thither by one of their number who worked 
as hired man to my father. It was Sunday, and I was per- 
mitted to go only on the ground of attending church. As 
I was so small that I had to be carried part of the way, 
and as the services were wholly in Welsh, I was not greatly 
edified, and could hardly have repeated the text had I been 
asked to do so. Nor so far as I could judge was my soul 
greatly imperiled. 

The town was laid out after the manner common to 
New England villages, a broad street running from end to 
end and connecting with the county roads to the towns 



78 RETROSPECTION 

on either side. On this main street were the stores, 
churches, public offices, and best dwellings, those of lesser 
importance occupying side streets. At an early day com- 
munication with the world at large was secured, notably 
with Cleveland on Lake Erie and Portsmouth on the Ohio 
river, by a series of canals cut in different directions 
to the extent of eight hundred miles of artificial navi- 
gation. 

It was a picturesque spot; on one side a range of well 
rounded hills, and on the other, running through low rich 
meadow land, a small river, navigable as a canal in places, 
elsewhere bright and rippling, turning here and there a 
grist mill and in later times a factory or two. At one end 
of the village near where the country road passed out of 
it was a steep conical hill, sugar-loaf it was called — every 
well-regulated hamlet had its sugar-loaf in those days, the 
name being common from the only form in which white 
sugar was then served to families. 

An atmosphere of serious austerity pervaded the place. 
Well away from the influence either of commerce or manu- 
factures, yet possessed with an aggressive economic un- 
rest, their industrial pursuits at this early date could find 
expression only in agriculture and home-building, which 
with a lively interest in the political questions of the day, 
and their township affairs, tended to foster thought and 
independence. 

Values were rated according to supply and the cur- 
rency measure of the time. Wages fifty cents a day ; board 
at the hotel a dollar a week ; chickens ten cents each ; but- 
ter fifteen cents, salt six cents, beef four cents, and venison 
three cents a pound. While peaches, quickly grown, sold 
at twenty-five cents a bushel, apples were three dollars; 
while wheat was a dollar a bushel, corn was twenty-five 
cents, and a bushel of it was exchangeable at the distillery 
for a gallon of whiskey. 

For whiskey was friendly in those days, not the devil 
incarnate of to-day. It stood in a pitcher on the table, and 



SOME OHIO YANKEES 79 

old and young might help themselves. And there was like- 
wise a patriotic rum called New England. Playing cards 
and dancing were anathema; novels, tobacco, slavery, and 
fiddles were Satan and his angels. 

When change was scarce the silver dollar was cut with 
an axe into halves and quarters; in the absence of silver, 
skins were the currency, and whiskey an article of ex- 
change. Wolves, bears, and panthers yielded their skins, 
the buffalo, wild turkey, and opossum their flesh ; the rattle- 
snake was an unmitigated nuisance. 

My father's youngest brother received as his inherit- 
ance a chest of carpenter tools. And he said, "With these 
I will carve my fortune. I shall marry me a good wife; I 
shall build me a good house, and for ten years I shall save 
up one hundred dollars each year." This he did; then 
became merchant, then banker, and was finally gathered 
to his fathers. Did Rothschild or Rockefeller more? 

Recollections of my Granville life began with a pet 
lamb, . grown impudent by indulgence, butting me down 
from a pile of sand, later sacrificed for his sins, and eaten 
by the younger sort all unconscious of cannibalistic devour- 
ings. 

Among my several youthful accomplishments was read- 
ing the Bible at the age of three years, which saved much 
reading of the book later; stealing bright new rake-teeth 
from a factory near by and then lying about it. In answer 
to the question "Where did you get them?" — two lies, 
one, "I found them," the other, "A man gave them to 
me" — bad even for an infant grafter, two lies where one 
were better, one worse than wasted, not to be winked at 
by the high-crime court, but to be promptly dealt with by 
the rod, three several applications, one for each of the two 
lies, and one for the stealing, all attended by prayer and 
supplication, and all because of so much early Bible 
reading. 

The discipline though drastic was effective. The boy 
pondered; he could hold only three of those rake-teeth in 



80 RETROSPECTION 

his little hand. One whipping a tooth, and prayer and 
exhortation thrown in. More than that, he must return the 
rake-teeth and say he was sorry. He concluded that 
wickedness did not pay, at least on so small a scale, and 
thereupon he gave up the business. 

Another curative method for lying, milder, modern, 
perhaps as effective. 

At the family farm in California happily lived four 
youngsters, three boys and a girl, ages seven to twelve. 
The father discovered one day on the porch floor ?, puddle 
of ink with a mat thrown over it. The parents were at no 
time terrific in their expostulations, and but for the 
secretiveness attending what was no doubt an accident 
the father would have thought nothing of it. Calling the 
children to him he mildly asked who had been spilling ink, 
and instead of washing it away had covered it up. All 
disclaimed any knowledge of it. As the mother was absent 
and no one but the children about the house, it required 
no great reflection on the father's part to see that a fib 
was hidden away somewhere in the little fold. 

"Well," said he, "let us draw up our chairs around 
this black blot upon our family escutcheon and talk it 
over. 

"Of ancient origin, this dismal fluid, one of grand 
achievements as well as dastardly deeds — a page of ado- 
lescent poetry, for example, a conspiracy discovered, a 
marriage contract, a death warrant. Many strange revela- 
tions it has made, many a man it has hanged, and many a 
woman undone.' \ 

Signs of unrest broke out in the little audience during 
this highly instructive and lucid discourse, manifested by 
shiftings of position, stabbing mosquitoes with a pin, and 
contortions of features while watching the interesting con- 
vulsions of spider and fly. 

"What's it all about any way?" pipes a little one; and 
another, the reckless, devil-may-care sort of fellow, of all 



SOME OHIO YANKEES 81 

the four always the suspect, "I say, Papa, how long are 
you going to keep us here ? I want ' ' 

He bluffs well, the little cuss, the father thought. 

1 'Only until the ink or something speaks," he said. 
Then, continuing, " Queer stuff, ink! Compound of lamp- 
black and glue, logwood and potassium, acid or oxide or 
what you will. Pliny employed nutgalls and iron sulphate, 
Cicero squeezed cuttle-fish; but howsoever engendered, 
always the messenger of life and scavenger of death, always 
breathing love and hate, always evolving comedy and 
tragedy, healing hearts and breaking them, helping some 
to their Nirvana and others to their Styx crossing; a won- 
derful thing this black liquid that writes itself on the 
porch floor to tell some little innocent that it was a sort 
of mistake to throw a mat over it. For like Gehazi's ad- 
venture, you cannot hide it; like Banquo's ghost, it will 
not down; a good friend in the Lamb's book of life, a 
terrible enemy midst the thunderings of Sinai." 

A sob, a burst of grief, a flood of tears from a source 
the least expected. And it struck full upon that father's 
breast. Was there aught of petition or of punishment in 
the parental heart? There was not. Chastisement in- 
flicted at this most critical moment of the child's life 
would seem like striking down a soul hovering on the verge 
of the infinite. 

' ' There, there, ' ' said the father, throwing his arm over 
the child's shoulder, "its all right, only a little mistake, it 
was the dirty door-mat that somehow got over the ink, 
wasn't it? Now come away and think no more about it." 

But the little one did think about it. It was the first 
and last lie the child was ever known to tell. 

On another occasion, another of the young philosophers, 
hearing some remark on the obedience of children, ex- 
claimed, "Mind my father! Why shouldn't I? Papa 
makes us want to do what he wants us to. ' ' 

To return to our Ohio affairs. 



82 RETROSPECTION 

At the age of five years the farm demanded my services 
to the exclusion of school in summer. I remember one 
day riding the horse to plow between the rows of corn 
under the hot sun, my bare legs chafed by the harness and 
smarting from the animal's sweat. I burst out crying, 
for I was but a baby. My father kindly inquired the cause, 
for he was by no means a harsh man. "I think it is pretty 
hard work for a little boy here all day," I said. "I think 
so, too, my son," was the reply, and straightway I was 
released. 

Memories more or less tender or tough come to me of 
orchard and meadow and deep tangled wildwood that 
were there, and the veritable old oaken bucket itself that 
hung in the well. 

How I hated milking the cow, hoeing in the garden or 
field, raking hay in the scorching sun, and going to school 
— though there were many compensations, cracking nuts 
and popping corn by the fireside winter nights ; camping in 
the snow under the maple-trees sugaring time; sleighing, 
skating, or fishing; bathing, shooting squirrels, or for 
further excitement catching and mounting an unbroken 
colt only to be thrown as fast as repeated. 

Our farm was but half a mile from the village, a hill 
intervening, from one side of which my father took stone 
and built him a fine house, while on the summit stood later 
the baptist college which gave Mr. Rockefeller a good pres- 
ident for his Chicago university. 

Indeed, this little New England oasis was from the 
first quite educational in its way, when not too absorbed 
by fads and fanaticism. Besides district school and 
academy there were two large female seminaries, baptist 
learning not at all fitting Boston Congregationalism. 

Evidences of the intellectual life and its aspirations were 
elsewhere visible beyond the Alleghanies. With the Ohio 
company of 1787 from Ipswich had come the Ohio uni- 
versity, whose personnel consisted largely of Yale and 
Harvard men. Then not far distant were the Miami uni- 



SOME OHIO YANKEES 83 

versity, the Western Reserve college, the Oberlin ultra 
abolition institution, and others. As in New England re- 
ligion and education went hand in hand; a town without 
its church and school was a barbarism. 

Here indeed were both heredity and environment, even 
if not under the most favorable conditions, eugenics and 
eutherics, not in opposition but working in harmony. And 
the doctrine thence emerging was current there, though 
the people did not so express themselves. 

They knew themselves to be well born, these sturdy 
New Englanders, of pious and thrifty ancestry, thinkers 
of their own thoughts, and right thinkers according to the 
enlightenment of their understanding; and yet with all 
their necessity, free-will entire, the will to do, to improve, 
to accept the best and profit by the good things God had 
given them. They knew it to be a favorable atmosphere 
for the making of men, as were also conditions of their 
kind along the Mississippi, but different. Ohio has fur- 
nished her full quota of scholars and statesmen, not to 
mention fighting men and money-makers. 

For a long time after railroads and steamboats came 
into vogue my grandfather Howe refused to trust himself 
on any of them, using only his one-horse springless wagon 
for his limited travelling. He was told every Sunday, and 
often repeated the precept to others, that God's arm was 
not shortened that it could not save, yet he did not feel 
quite as safe trusting to it where steam was concerned. It 
was not until he lacked two years of being a hundred 
years old that he was persuaded to make the journey by 
way of the Isthmus to California, where were many of his 
descendants whom he greatly desired to see. He enjoyed 
his trip thoroughly, and after his visit returned in safety 
to his home in Kansas, where he then lived with his 
youngest daughter. 

He was one of the best and purest men that ever lived, 
even if California did seem to him a little beyond the pale 
of providence. Even the debtors' prison at St. Albans, 



84 RETROSPECTION 

Vermont, did not affright him when lodged there for a 
thousand dollar obligation incurred as surety for a friend. 
And as for faith, where were the mountains it would not 
remove? Novels were his special detestation; the black 
man an ebony idol. 

"But grandfather reads Uncle Tom's Cabin, that is a 
novel. ' ' 

"A novel! What do you mean? It is true, every word 
of it." 

I do not pretend to any remembrance of it, but I may 
state the facts as history, that when I was four years old, 
while yet Abraham Lincoln was playing seven-up with 
slave-holders in his back office, and William Lloyd Garri- 
son was being mobbed by the good people of Boston, since 
then evolutionizing themselves into a state of sympathy 
and sentiment regarding the poor people of color, there 
came to our town certain zealous men to hold an anti- 
slavery convention, the first in central Ohio. The use of 
the church in which town meetings were held being refused 
for the purpose, my father offered his barn, a nice new 
one, and as yet unfilled with hay, which was gladly ac- 
cepted. All went well until the meetings were over. Then 
as the chief speakers on their horses were slowly wending 
their way out of town, a one-horse wagon filled with bad 
men and bad eggs was seen following them. Notwithstand- 
ing the vile odors which filled the air, and the slimy sub- 
stance dripping from men and horses, not the faintest 
shade of annoyance was seen on the faces of the strangers ; 
not the slightest increase of pace was discernible. 

They went their way, these early Ohio martyrs, none 
the less true though tamer perhaps than the fiery Wen- 
dell Phillips, who shouted to his Boston audience that 
tried to stop his speaking, ' ' Howl on ! Howl on ! you con- 
tumacious curs ; I speak to forty millions of freemen ' ' — 
pointing to the reporters. He might almost make it a 
round hundred millions to-day. 



SOME OHIO YANKEES 85 

And that from Boston's solid men in Faneuil hall 
assembled; too much like the solid men of San Francisco 
of to-day, our most worshipful apostles of high crime ; they, 
Boston's apostles of high crime, loath to offend the white 
men of the south, later eager to place over them these 
same black men to grind them into the dust. 

Some six years after this black baptism of the barn, a 
small boy might have been seen, had it not been midnight 
and rather dark, driving a big two-horse wagon filled with 
straw on the way to Fredonia, distant six miles 
toward Canada. It was his first all-night out of bed, 
and the bumps of the wagon as the old plow 
horses followed the road sadly interfered with the 
snatches of sleep taken at his peril on the slippery seat. 
Why the enthusiasts should send forth this babe as 
director-general of a wagon of human estrays fresh 
from Kentucky — for the straw was alive with them — 
instead of one of the grown-ups going himself, may not 
be surmised unless it arose from the well-known modesty 
of the Yankee in matters of charity and good deeds; or 
should the slave-hunters catch on such an errand a little 
fellow like that, all they could do would be to send him 
home and to bed. 

It will be remembered that at the time of the discon- 
tinuance of the slave-trade in 1807 negro slaves numbered 
nearly one-fifth of the population of the United States, and 
were fast increasing, to the peril of the Republic. The 
Anti-slavery society was formed in 1833, under the 
auspices of Arthur Tappan, William Lloyd Garrison, and 
Wendell Phillips. Public sentiment, carrying with it the 
churches, was against the movement. "It hurts business,' ' 
said the thrifty New Englander, the Quaker silent but 
assenting, "thus to stir up the enmity of our customers in 
the south," forgetting that the American revolution hurt 
business, likewise the war of 1812. It was the same cry 
which we hear to-day in the streets of our cities over the 
prosecution of rich criminals. 
4 



86 RETROSPECTION 

After mobbing those reformers the friends of the 
slave-holders felt better, and later we find New Eng- 
enders in the front rank, fighting slave-holders, eman- 
cipating the slave, giving him the franchise, and taking 
him, with all his evil odors, to their sensitive hearts — meta- 
phorically, though pausing in consternation before the 
reality. 

As for the churches, they could be conducted on any 
required principle, for slavery or against it, according to 
the demand. Pew-holders can always have any kind of 
religion they want and are willing to pay for. 

It was a straight-laced community, but by no means 
saturnine. On the contrary, meeting as neighbors they 
were rather disposed to be jovial, old people particularly, 
often making sport of their ailments when they were in 
reality anything but a joke. Puritan ancestry was still 
insistent where conduct and belief were concerned. 

To the ever unfolding subconsciousness of the younger 
members of this society the atmosphere was perhaps a 
little stifling, but upon the elders, whose women were 
positive and argumentative while the men were deliberate 
and judicial, the effect was exhilarating. 

In an atmosphere of serious concern, slowly and rever- 
ently along the rough streets on the Sabbath-day walked 
the towns-people to the village church; from the distant 
farms came worshipers in springless wagon, or mounted 
on a pillion behind the saddle for the matron or maid. 
Always present were men and women well along in years, 
meeting at the meeting-house being part of the last drama 
of their declining years. 

It was scarcely a day of rest, this New England Sab- 
bath, whether in Massachusetts or Ohio, what with physical 
and psychological purifications, head-scrubbing and heart- 
cleaning, private prayers morning and night, family 
prayers morning and night, two sermons, a Sunday school 
and some sort of evening meeting. Yet the Ohio pilgrims 
were long since emancipated from the blue-laws of Con- 



SOME OHIO YANKEES 87 

necticut, which forbid that any one on the Sabbath-day 
should travel, cook, kiss, shave, walk or ride, except to 
meeting, buy or sell, dine out, or wink, except rev- 
erently. 

They were a century away from those halcyon days of 
enforced religion and the fiercer forms of persecution. 
Yet without stocks and the whipping-post there were 
still ways enough left by which unbelievers and back- 
sliders could be made to suffer. From the more repulsive 
forms of their ancient beliefs, as predestination, election, 
and infant damnation they were slowly emancipating 
themselves; they had much left to learn and unlearn, and 
one or two centuries were scarcely sufficient to wear away 
the stern rectitude inherited from their ancestors. 

Other infamies, or shall I say infirmities, were absent, 
as the debtors' prison, the witch-ducking pond, though 
Luther's personal devil sometimes displayed himself; 
while yet to arrive were applied steam and electricity, the 
telegraph, telephone, railroad, sewing-machine, automobile, 
farm machinery, gas and water systems, and graft. Later 
quite liberal views obtained; the bass-viol was allowed in 
church, a young man bowing it during singing and read- 
ing dime novels behind it during service. 

Though as a whole full of the cool illogical antis and 
isms of the day, and faithful to doctrinal religion as ex- 
pounded by their good pastor, they were delightfully in- 
dividual and independent of thought at times. More than 
one mother as she gazed at her infant was heard to ex- 
claim, "You can say what you like, but I cannot believe 
that my babe will be forever punished for sins it never 
committed.' ' 

It was an intensely political and patriotic community, 
the men often riding twenty-five miles to Columbus to 
hear campaign speeches. And when the presidential elec- 
tion came around, a Roman carnival was a tame affair 
beside it. I well remember the campaign of 1840; with one 
of our own Ohio men as the whig candidate, Granville, 



88 RETROSPECTION 

with all her many other graces and virtues being intensely 
whig. 

On the day appointed for a grand celebration an elab- 
orate procession marched to Newark, the county seat, dis- 
tant six miles, with ceaseless blare and oratory, with 
barbecue, hard cider and fist fights, and songs. 

"Hurrah for Tom Corwin the wagoner's boy," and 
then for Harrison, who lived in a log cabin and drank 
hard cider, 

"And Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, 
And with 'em we'll beat little Van, Van, Van, 
He's a used up man, 
And with 'em we'll beat little Van." 

At an early hour the procession formed in the village 
square under a jointed liberty-pole 270 feet high. There 
were log-cabins on wheels, some of them drawn by twenty 
yoke of oxen, crowned with wreaths and decorated with 
ribbons; Indian camp-fires and skulking warriors; canoes 
thirty to fifty feet long, each out of a single tree; barrels 
of hard cider, that wickedest of tipples, on tap, with cup 
attached ; ginger-bread and lemonade, pie and cheese, roast 
fowl, boiled ham, nutcakes, coffee, and endless like things 
to eat and drink lasting for the festival all day and far 
into the night. 

With bands of music, banners unfolded, and shout and 
song, men and boys, mounted and on foot, marked with 
the pilgrimage a day long to be remembered. Another 
day came also, a year later, when funeral obsequies were 
held for the dead president with similar intensity. 

A common-school education at public expense in those 
days did not include modern languages, Greek or San- 
scrit, piano-lessons, dancing or sword exercises, but was 
rather confined to those studies of which some practical 
use could afterward be made. 

I aspired first to go through college, and then to Con- 
gress, my father giving his consent, even to my achieving 



SOME OHIO YANKEES 89 

the presidency. But we were not rich; there were no rich 
men in those days, all being honest. And long years of 
study would impose a burden upon my parents for my 
maintenance to which I could not subject them. I soon 
saw that to accomplish much in any direction I must put 
money in my purse. A little would suffice, but that little 
was necessary. 

At this juncture fate interposed in the form of a young 
red-headed Buffalo bookseller, fine of form and feature, 
good-hearted, ambitious in his calling, and free of speech. 
Visiting our town, where lived his parents, he fell in love 
with my charming eldest sister, and some time after their 
marriage he offered me a place in his store as clerk, which 
I accepted, thus terminating my studies at the academy, 
and my life in Ohio. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE CALL OF GOLD 

fcfc -"TT looks like gold," said Sutter. 

1 He poked his finger through it, took up a lump 
and bit it, laid it on the anvil and hammered it. He 
dropped acid on it; it stood all the tests. 

''It is gold, very sure," quietly observed the Swiss; 
and there was no smile upon his face, no gleam of triumph 
in his eye. 

"My Gord!" cried Marshall, "and I can fetch you a 
hatful of it." 

It was in the morning of the 27th of January, 1848, 
three days after the specks of yellow in the tail-race had 
attracted the attention of the mill-builders. Marshall had 
ridden in from Coloma, some forty-six miles distant, during 
the night, sleeping part of the time in the chaparral. 

The two men were radically different in form and con- 
struction, physically and psychologically. Marshall was 
a big, burly, coarse-grained west- American jack-of -all- 
trades, a mixture of Methodist and Mormon, spiritualistic 
tendencies mingling with his many minor superstitions. 
Among his assistants in setting up a saw-mill for Captain 
Sutter were some of Sam Brannan's disciples, and certain 
deflections from the missionaries in Oregon. 

John A. Sutter was a German Swiss, small in stature, 
educated and refined, of a retiring disposition, but filled 
with ambition in which visions of empire faintly mingled. 
He left home in 1834. He never told me why, but per- 
mitted me to infer that the doses of Calvinism, as admin- 
istered by parental authority, were a little too strong 

90 



THE CALL OF GOLD 91 

for him, especially when interfering with unorthodox 
love. 

He studied America for four years in the Santa Fe 
country. He realized the significance of the frontier, both 
sides of it, as it drifted slowly westward from the Atlantic 
seaboard ; he saw the potentialities of the Plains. Crossing 
to the Pacific he took a look at the Sandwich islands, as 
the Hawaiian group was then called; whence, proceeding 
to Alaska, he dropped down the coast to San Francisco bay, 
and paddled up the Sacramento to the head of tidewater, 
where he rested content. He found there all that he 
wanted, more than he had expected ever to see combined 
in one spot, absolute primevalism with soil and climate un- 
surpassed, bright sunshine under the snowy Sierra, and 
the grassy plain alive with nature's best creations — ani- 
mals, wild fowl, and fishes for food, and a native humanity 
of just the consistency for his purpose, mild, tractable, 
and with proper handling, useful. 

Obtaining from Mexico a grant of ten leagues of land 
as a gift, with another possible ten leagues, he built a fort, 
and set in motion his dusky retainers toward the achieve- 
ment of a personal principality in this charming lotus- 
land, where he might be near the white men yet remaining 
apart from all complex organizations and systems. 

He knew what he wanted, and it was not gold. Some 
men are made that way, howsoever difficult for Wall street 
to understand. 

The call of gold, yes, blind and beastly as a god, some 
it calls up and others it calls down. 

We should scarcely expect in the history of the world to 
see emphasized as a great event the finding of gold in the 
tail-race of Sutter's saw-mill. We should hardly classify 
it with such happenings as the Crusades, the discovery 
of America, or the battle of Waterloo. Yet when we can 
clearly see in this gold discovery, with the developments in 
Australia, in British Columbia, and in all northwestern 



92 RETROSPECTION 

America which followed, an intellectual awakening, a new 
departure in the world's advancement, we cannot look 
upon the affair as one devoid of special significance. 

Three events, pregnant with future unfoldings, came 
simultaneously, no one of them known to or dependent 
upon either of the others. The war with Mexico was not 
brought on, nor the acquisition of California secured be- 
cause of gold in the Sierra foothills, as the fact was not 
known at the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The line of 
steamships from the Atlantic seaboard across the famous 
Isthmus to San Francisco and our northwest coast posses- 
sions was not established because of the acquisition of new 
domain on the Pacific, though it may have been done 
anticipatory thereof. The first steamer for Oregon was 
arrested in her course at San Francisco by the startling 
intelligence of the acquisition of California and the discov- 
ery of gold, and she proceeded north no farther. The 
three events coming together exercised a powerful impulse 
on industrial development, but without the discovery of 
gold the other two would have made but a slight impres- 
sion upon the affairs of the world. 

The inrush of miners gave California the opportunity 
of adopting a constitution and applying at once for admis- 
sion as a state, without undergoing the usual probationary 
territorial period, but the question of slavery arose caus- 
ing delay. It was for more slave territory that southern 
politicians had brought on the war with Mexico, and not 
for gold to be gathered by world-wide adventurers. 

It is not safe to say that but for the gold California 
would have been admitted in time as a slave state, for I 
can scarcely believe it to be true ; but there is no question 
that with the strong southern influence in Congress, and 
the plot carefully prearranged on the Pacific coast, mat- 
ters might have been delayed and manipulated so as to 
bring about the most serious consequences but for the large 
mixed population that suddenly appeared in California 
who were opposed to slavery. 



THE CALL OF GOLD 93 

As it was, the state of California started off promptly 
with a good constitution and a good law-making body, 
which soon earned the cognomen of "the legislature of a 
thousand drinks." Whether this number was regarded as 
large or small, and whether it was a thousand a day or a 
thousand for the entire term, the record does not state. A 
thousand would give only five or ten drinks to each person, 
which for some would be scant allowance for even half a 
day. 

It is safe to say that the gold event gave rise to many 
political and economic developments; that its effect on 
industrialism was as great as the effect of the Crusades on 
feudalism. It revolutionized values throughout the world, 
and infected every civilized nation with an aggressive 
economic unrest. It rendered obsolete ancient usages and 
established new methods. Great in war as in peace, if it 
did not actually save to the United States the union, the 
steady inflow into New York of five millions of dollars a 
month during the entire period of hostilities, and before 
as well as after, saved the country from dire distress if not 
from financial ruin. 

The effect of the gold discovery on the Pacific coast, 
though mild at first, in the end was magical, bringing to- 
gether at San Francisco bay representatives from all 
nations, and huddling humanity in promiscuous heaps 
along five hundred miles of Sierra foothills. It opened 
to all mankind a new field of romance, with endless 
economic potentialities, establishing on the ocean lines of 
steamships, and on the rivers inland traffic, overspread- 
ing the land with agriculture, with irrigations and re- 
clamations, weaving a network of railways throughout 
western North America, and hastening forward slow civil- 
ization a hundred years with its blessed ages of gold and 
grain and graft. 

The time was ripe for something new to appear in the 
world's work. The timidity of an earlier day was for- 
gotten; adventure was in the blood. The advantages of 



94 RETROSPECTION 

industrial specialization were beginning to be seen; suc- 
cess in this new field of untried issues came rather by con- 
centration of mind and energies on some one thing, and 
becoming expert in that, than by dissipating energy and 
enthusiasm in dipping into many things. Skilled labor 
came to the front and with it fresh adventure and wider 
speculation. 

The first to feel this impulse as in the olden days was 
transportation. Whatever else there was to be done men 
must be moving about. Hence on all the lines of over- 
land travel emigrant trains were to be seen, hundreds of 
whitehooded wagons and creaking prairie schooners, and 
thousands of cattle and horses — the Oregon movement 
repeated but with greater intensity than ever. Over the 
central and southern routes to California soon appeared 
lines of stages, in which passengers rode for twenty-five 
or thirty consecutive days and nights, the fare being at 
the rate of about ten dollars a day. The Butterfield and 
Salt Lake stages reduced the time from the Missouri to 
Sacramento to twenty days. When the pony express was 
established, letters were brought from New York in ten 
da}^s, an accomplished marvel of speed. 

Numberless sails appeared upon the ocean and craft of 
every sort on inland waters. Shipbuilding felt the im- 
pulse in a manner never before dreamed of, resulting in 
the beautiful Baltimore clipper, a work of art as of ocean 
architecture never surpassed before or since. Every line 
a line of beauty; every curve a curve for speed. They 
used frequently to make the passage via Cape Horn in 
sixty days, turning out the cargo without a stain. 

The moneyed men of New York came out of their back 
offices and took a look around. They did not stop to build 
new steamers, but took whatever was available, giving to 
the old craft fresh paint and new names. For the Pacific 
side several new steamships were built of a pattern more 
spacious and pleasant for tropical travel than any which 



THE CALL OF GOLD 95 

has yet been seen ; vessels of the Golden Gate type, two or 
three decks above water, made thus high owing to the early 
reputation of this ocean for quiet waters, which, however, 
may lash themselves into fury upon occasion. 

Thus it was that when the traveller from New York had 
reached and crossed the Isthmus and was seated in his 
steamer chair under the awning of the well-polished upper 
deck of one of these new ocean palaces, awaiting the trans- 
ference of mails and baggage, the soft air from aromatic 
isles lulling to rest and reflection, little wonder that he 
fancied the worst of the voyage was over, and that the 
remaining two weeks' sail under such charming conditions 
would be nothing but a pleasure trip. 

He had endured enough on the Atlantic side from the 
avarice and rascality of the New York magnates, who had 
hastened to throw into the traffic all the old craft avail- 
able, sail and steam, ill-fitted and ill-provisioned, and were 
selling tickets for the Isthmus, and even for San Francisco, 
often without a sleeping berth on the Atlantic side and no 
means of continuing their journey on the Pacific. 

Most of these travellers were inexperienced, many of 
them fresh from their country homes, and the boats put 
upon the Panama and Nicaragua routes by Howland and 
Aspinwall, and others of that stamp, were supposed to be 
safe, when the owners well knew they were not. Many 
thousand passengers were thus thrown into the pest-hole 
of Panama, there to contract lingering disease or merci- 
fully to die quickly, by the shipping men of New York, in- 
different alike to the miseries of the voyage or the inter- 
vening deaths laid at their door. 

One instance out of many was the Central America, an 
old condemned steamer whose name had been several times 
changed, which sank on her way up in September, 1857, 
with 579 returning Californians and about four millions 
in treasure. 

Over 400 of the finest specimens of American manhood 
were sent on this occasion alone to their deaths; $100,000 



96 RETROSPECTION 

profits on the voyage went into the pockets of the ship 
owners. 

A Havre liner was lost from collision about the same 
time, and it was remarked the difference in the behavior of 
the respective passengers and crews. On the French ves- 
sel pandemonium reigned. Officers and sailors, and such 
of the passengers as were able to fight their way through, 
rushed for the boats, leaving the weaker ones to perish. 

On the American vessel calm courage and order pre- 
vailed. The orders of the officers were promptly obeyed. 
Rough bearded men quietly drew their revolvers and 
formed lines between which the women and children were 
conducted to the boats, and not until the last of them 
were thus bestowed did the men consider themselves. The 
boats being already filled they had only to go bravely 
down to their deaths, while a thousand loved ones at home 
awaited their coming. Captain and officers were also 
sacrificed to the cupidity of those whose names are at this 
day sometimes mentioned in honor. 

How they felt, these same rich men, while passing the 
plate in church the next Sunday no one knows, but prob- 
ably they were reconciled to the dispensation of provi- 
dence, provided the ship was properly insured. 

And the late heart-rending disaster of the Titanic 
shows that Anglo-Saxon courage and chivalry has in no 
wise diminished in half a century when America's fore- 
most and wealthiest men could calmly take their place 
among those doomed to die that the frivolous French maid 
and Sicilian fish-wife might live. 

It was a tame enough affair, so it seemed at the time, 
this finding of gold by the Oregon interlopers and Mor- 
mon renegades. All around was the quiet of the wilder- 
ness, all save the voices of nature. The secret of the Sierra 
had been kept long and faithfully, and it came quietly 
before the world, not with the rush of wings or blare of 
trumpets so important a discovery might have justified, 



THE CALL OF (J OLD 97 

the knowledge of gold in California. A score of times sim- 
ilar reports had been heard of places elsewhere in Amer- 
ica, some of them even in the United States, and little 
having come of them little attention was given to new 
announcements. 

Coolly and critically Captain Sutter reviewed the situa- 
tion. He knew that he was ruined in so far as the pur- 
pose for which he came was concerned. Should the mines 
prove permanent, opportunities for vast wealth lay before 
him, but not the peace isolation brings. 

Ardent for empire he had wandered west, had entered 
the unknown, had touched here and there, and passed on. 
He had found what he wanted ; he did not know this until 
some time after he had found it. An island would not 
have sufficed, nor yet lands torrid or frigid, nor yet a 
country of half civilized heathen. From such places voices 
of the mountain, voices of the desert warned him away. 
The land of his adoption must be a plain, a valley of good 
air, good soil, and properly watered. It must be abso- 
lutely primitive, inhabited if at all only by an aboriginal 
race of a low vitality with a disposition not too fierce. 

He had found the spot here on the left bank of the 
Sacramento — blessed name this that was given to the stream 
by the friars though they had seen it only at its mouth. 
The land was free, and yet he could secure with it titles, 
valid titles if he possessed sufficient strength to make them 
so, all to be had for the asking. 

The second ten leagues he seemed to want more than 
he had coveted the first. Strange how this Teutonic land- 
hunger increases with possession, limitless lands within his 
grasp and his hands could hold so little ! And he so little ! 
Why would he have more land? Did he want the world? 
Yes, if he could carry it away and keep it. But he could 
not keep it. Though he later laid out and established 
on this river bank a great city, the capital of a great 
state, every foot of it originally his own, yet he could not 
keep it. 



98 RETROSPECTION 

He was doomed, he and his life's dream, doomed by 
the infernal power of this gold, doomed to die in poverty, 
the last of his Sacramento leagues lost to him; to die in 
a dreary Pennsylvania hamlet, where the writer of these 
pages found him, and talked with him, listening to his last 
lament during these his last days, and offering such poor 
consolation as he was able. 

He saw, this shrewd Swiss, shrewd though so weak, as 
in a vision, as he gazed upon this gold and thought of its 
transmuting properties — he saw vanish his dream of em- 
pire, his kingship over some thousands of naked, mild- 
mannered red men; he saw his lands usurped, bands of 
lawless in-rushing gold-hunters, squatting here and there 
and everywhere, killing and scattering his great droves of 
cattle, killing and demoralizing his people. 

"Ah, yes!" he complained pathetically to a stranger 
who later came down out of the mountains soliciting relief 
for snow-bound emigrants, ' ' those poor fellows, I send them 
beef, I send them venison, then they kill and eat all my 
good Indians!" 

Great is gold, the god of gods, who visiteth with ven- 
geance his votaries; great above all gods, who destroy eth 
all those that faithfully serve him! 

So was stricken down this greatest of Sacramento mag- 
nates, although no votary; stricken down and ruined by 
the tidings shouted out by these flakes of gold picked up 
one afternoon in January, 1848, by Mormons creeping over 
toward the Saints rest at Salt Lake, and those fellows who 
had drifted in from Oregon, — stricken down, this broad- 
minded constructionist, by the overwhelming weight of 
his economic environment. 

Yet the ruin of Sutter came slowly, slowly for those 
swift days of transformation. At first he expanded, be- 
came great, Sutter's fort famous the world over as the 
fortress defending illimitable wealth, — leagues of land with 
vast droves of cattle tended by dusky servitors; miles of 
metal in the mountains; a great city standing by a broad 



THE CALL OF GOLD 99 

stream — bearing up alike inland crafts and ocean vessels, 
all his yet not his, for he could not hold it ; the gods of the 
Sierra, the demons of its gold, shouting in their glee at the 
confusion they had wrought, at the first grand coup thus 
early made upon this nearby Swiss adventurer. 

Then for a moment silence fell on Coloma and the Foot- 
hills around; after that a great noise; and the saw-mill 
site remained a site while Mormon and Oregonian gathered 
gold, Mormon hallooed to Mormon, the brethren taking 
their stand at and around a little island in the river, call- 
ing it Mormon island. Through them next to be stricken, 
and for the moment palsied by this gold discovery, was 
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, whose 
banner of Holiness to the Lord was here on the American 
river struck, and the flag of fealty to the devil hoisted in 
its stead. 

Ere long the news was carried down the river to Sonoma, 
where General Vallejo held sway, and to sleepy San Fran- 
cisco, a hamlet of mixed white men and Mexicans, store- 
keepers, cattle-men, priests, politicians, and loafers, the 
alleged gold discovery awakening little interest. 

It was only when plethoric bags of the yellow stuff, 
coarse and fine, with some great chunks of it picked up 
in the placers were displayed in the towns about, that the 
somnolent Pacific awoke to some faint realization of what 
had come to pass. 

Although always the friend of Americans and Ameri- 
can progress, Vallejo like Sutter, and in common with 
most of the Spanish Californians, suffered from the in- 
rush following the finding of gold. Their wealth was in 
land and cattle, and they were loosely served by the mild- 
est of Indians. They occupied the fertile coast valleys 
which had formerly been held by the missions, now some 
fifteen years secuLarized. The gold mines were far away ; 
they had no desire to participate in the harvesting at the 
Foothills; they felt the adverse influence of the gold in 
the pressure of strangers on their privacy, the inroads on 



100 RETROSPECTION 

their lands, the scattering of their stock, and the demorali- 
zation of their Indians. 

Accustomed to half-tropical airs, they and their pro- 
genitors, they were not strong enough successfully to cope 
with northern peoples. Gradually came upon them the 
evil days, and they were practically ruined before they 
knew it. 

Beyond the precincts of California, slowly during the 
winter of 1848-9, filtered the news through the mountains, 
the winds carrying it over the seas with specimen bags of 
gold-dust and gold nuggets, until by the early spring, the 
revelation came with full force upon the minds of men 
that this new region of gold was above the common, or 
mythical, and a veritable land bearing substantial metal. 

With time and distance the movement increased; men 
of commerce and finance, those of the cities and the in- 
dustrial centres, saw more clearly than the less experienced 
people near at hand the economic revolution that must 
ensue should this accession to the world's currency prove 
to be as great as it now promised. 

Ships came in from every considerable port on the 
globe, until five hundred of them lay at anchor in San 
Francisco bay, more than ever were there at one time be- 
fore or since, most of them quickly deserted on arrival, 
officers and crew being off for the mines. 

In the mines ; what shall I say of the complex conditions 
there ? Out of ethnic combinations never before so much 
as dreamed of was quickly evolved a new society, nay, 
more, a new race, for the developments of that day remain, 
and will never pass away. Every conceivable thing in 
the shape of humanity was present, good and bad, white 
black and yellow, hearts of heaven and hearts of hell, all 
mixed up and stirred together in a great cauldron of so- 
cial unrest, without law, without restraint, all cut loose 
from home, from civilizing, humanizing influences, all here 
at liberty to let loose the deities or demons that possessed 



THE CALL OF GOLD 101 

them without question and without restraint. And the 
impression thus imprinted on the soul of humanity still 
remains; go to the uttermost end of the earth and you will 
find it there. 

Australia came forward with a great yield of gold a 
few years later, when there was another upheaval, and an- 
other at South Africa, and others all over western North 
America. These were in due time followed by other 
demons and demonstrations of cupidity and human greed, 
displayed at this day in a mighty menagerie of oil-men, 
iron-men, labor-lords, railway-kings, and money gods. 

Many companies or economic associations were formed 
before leaving the east, mostly for mining, but some few 
for commercial or manufacturing purposes. They some- 
times chartered a vessel to carry them with their ma- 
chinery or other effects to their destination, or took pas- 
sage in sailing-vessel or steamer in a body. 

It was a trying ordeal, men of various minds and moods, 
assertive and independent, and finding conditions so strange 
and interests so diverse it was no wonder that the com- 
panies broke up on arrival, not necessarily in enmity, yet 
each preferring to go his own way. 

New economic developments and new industrial re- 
lationships sprang up on every side, while all commercial 
and financial arrangements must be adjusted anew. 

Extensive shipments of goods were made on a venture 
from nearly every port the world over to San Francisco 
bay, consigned to some merchant or commission house or 
to master. It was a precarious business, very like 
gambling. If the goods were wanted and there was a 
scarcity they brought fabulous prices; if not wanted they 
could not be sold or scarcely given away, as this would 
involve drayage and storage, and might amount to more 
than the goods would ever fetch. 

It was easy to corner the market, especially in small 
things. Some capital might be required to purchase all 



102 RETROSPECTION 

the house-lining, and the speculation would be attended 
by risk, but a little money would buy all the tacks, without 
which the cloth would be of no use. So with regard to 
oil and lamps, the wicks alone controlled the situation. 

Enterprising San Francisco brokers would often go 
out in a pilot boat beyond the Golden Gate to meet and 
board an incoming ship with a much desired cargo and 
purchase the whole of it before the ship came to anchor. 

So many desirable and undesirable articles being thus 
constantly thrown upon the market led to the establish- 
ment of numerous auction houses where large and small 
invoices were disposed of daily. 

Thrilling romances might be sent spinning out of this 
classic epoch, of which I can give here only the background. 

The native Californians reveled in this plethora of 
gold. General Vallejo's house at Sonoma was the frontier 
post in those days. It was always open to strangers, 
whether immigrants or returning miners. A considerable 
business in cattle, horses, and farm products was trans- 
acted there. 

A cavalier of the old school, handsome and debonair, 
it pleased his very soul to fling to the man who held his horse 
a Mexican ounce, or a like coin to the barber and tell him 
to keep the change. On the hall floor of his house, at one 
time, stood a row of pickle- jars filled with gold-dust un- 
protected night and day. At another time, and not so 
very long afterward, this same Sonoma dwelling housed a 
bankrupt, a prince among bankrupts, who once controlled 
every foot of the dunes on which San Francisco now stands, 
and all the vast region beyond up to the Oregon line, and 
who after dispensing an empire to impecunious strangers 
for nothing, lived out his time and died happily without 
a dollar in the world he could call his own. 

A real or affected indifference to money matters in 
detail pervaded all classes. Miners would leave their gold- 
dust on the shelves of their vacant cabin in tin cups, or in 



THE CALL OF GOLD 103 

dishes, without any attempt to conceal it. Merchants 
would sweep into the till a pile of mixed large and small 
coin without counting it. 

For a while amounts less than a dollar were not recog- 
nized in writing up accounts, or in buying and selling. 
Then drinks at the bar could be obtained at fifty cents 
each, and later at twenty-five cents. It was a long time 
before anything could be bought for a "bit" or a "pica- 
yune," — terms brought in from the south, especially from 
the New Orleans country, a bit signifying twelve and a 
half cents and a picayune half that amount. 

None the less potential for being proximate was the 
achievement of gold in founding new institutions and or- 
ganizing societies to meet the various conditions. 

The first impulse toward a fusion of the better elements 
in early California life arose from the kind-hearted benevo- 
lence exercised one toward another among these strangers 
thus strangely thrown together, and practised alike in the 
towns and in the mines. 

In 1846 there were in the state 2000 Americans and 
2000 Mexicans; in 1848, population 6000; in July, 1849, 
15,000, in December 92,597; in 1852, according to census 
taken, 269,000, including 30,000 Indians, 20,000 Chinese, 
and 2000 negroes. With the movement to the west coast 
gold mines the United States centre of population shifted 
81 miles westward before 1860. 

Few were satisfied without a trial at gold-mining; in- 
deed, such was the sole object of all those who came during 
that year, though by many the mines with their trials and 
uncertainties were soon abandoned for agriculture or busi- 
ness in the towns. 

Family expenses in San Francisco in 1849 were — 
house rent $200 to $300 a month ; servants, housemaid $100, 
cook $150 ; water $150 ; milk $150 ; wood $40 a cord ; flour 
$50 a barrel. Wild game meat was plentiful and cheap; 
potatoes $1 a pound; for the rest almost everything was 
a dollar a pound, — except some things which were two 



101 RETROSPECTION 

dollars a pound. Interest on money five to fifteen per 
cent, a month. 

It was an uncomfortable California, this winter of 
1849-50. It rained almost every day, and all day, and all 
night, so it seemed to those caught in the mountains, who 
had to sleep on the bare soggy earth. Some of them had 
a blanket, or half a one ; some found a thicket to crawl into, 
some a log to crawl under, some had food to eat. Toward 
the last the snow melted in the mountains, and through the 
swollen streams the water made its way down into the 
valleys, overspreading the plains, drowning the cattle, ob- 
literating the incipient town sites, and washing away the 
emigrant camps which lined the roadways. 

How did they live ? They did not live, not all of them. 
Many died, parents and children, and for the first time 
since they were born there were some thousands in the 
city and country who had all the gold they wanted. All 
who were able came down to the Bay, for the interior 
towns were wiped out, even Sacramento was navigable 
only in boats. 

San Francisco streets were bogs swallowing vehicles 
and breeding fever. The inhabitants gathered firewood 
in the chaparral, brought water in boats from Sausalito, 
and ate bear and deer meat, with rabbits and salt pork. 
Potatoes were scarce at a dollar a pound. 

Tobacco had been five dollars a pound; it was cheap 
enough before the winter was over, however, as cargo after 
cargo arrived, sent out by speculators who seemed to 
imagine tobacco-chewing a special aid to gold-digging. 
The ships must be unloaded, and there were no longer 
warehouses in which to store the surplus; whereupon 
wagon-loads or boat-loads of fancy plug in boxes were 
dumped at the street crossings for the benefit of pedes- 
trians, thus serving a good turn for the citizens. 

The little town was full of good citizens that winter. 
The well cared for the sick, those who had food gave to 
the hungry ; they improvised a city hospital, and organized 



THE CALL OF GOLD 105 

a Stranger's Friend society. All were strangers that 
winter, or nearly so, and all were friends ; whether a stranger 
or not benevolence showed no distinction. 

The April of 1906 saw suffering, but at least the ground 
was firm enough for the people to sleep on without its 
giving way under them, and they generally had something 
to chew for breakfast besides plug tobacco. The years of 
'49 and '50 could boast their conflagrations as well. 
Cholera and intermittent fever also came, brought in by 
ships as well as by overland immigrants, and there were 
burial places on the hillsides and in the valleys of the 
dunes. An officiating clergyman speaks incidentally of a 
burial on Russian hill, where he walked in the rain sinking 
to his knees in the mud at every step, and returning home 
with the fever. 

All through this strange time, as I have said, in the 
midst of cupidity and crime, underlying all was a sub- 
stratum of deep human sympathy and kindness. One 
rule, one faith, one principle pervaded all, finding ex- 
pression in these words: whatever the emergency it must 
be met, whether shipwreck, flood, or famine. There were 
always present the strong to care for the weak. Or if a 
wave of wickedness, an episode of high crime, there were 
always enough just men present to overcome the vicious. 

The cholera reached its height in the autumn of 1850, 
anxiety and exposure supplying many victims in the mines 
as well as in the towns. Sacramento and San Francisco 
both suffered severely. 

Religion was respected, so was three-card monte ; in the 
towns the Sabbath was observed more religiously than now, 
though by many made a day of sport. 

Fashion, dominant everywhere, ruled in the mines with 
sterner sway than in the cities, even. A slouched hat, 
woolen shirt, and breeches tucked into high top cowhide 
boots were safer in the city than top hat, white shirt, and 
patent leather boots in the mines. To the economic disciple 
of Confucius boots were boots when he learned to wear them; 



106 RETROSPECTION 

lie used to take the largest pair in the case, the price of all 
sizes being the same, so as to get the most for his money. 

If the flush times presented a seamy side in loud royster- 
ings, free pistoling, and easy hangings; if also a pathetic 
side appeared, and there was at hand plenty of pathos, 
there was always on the surface jollity and good fellow- 
ship. 

An eastern gentleman in shiny top hat and black coat 
landed from the steamer one soft hazy morning, and seeing 
a rough though honest looking fellow, red-bearded, with 
long tangled hair, sang out pleasantly but plainly, "Here, 
you! here's a half dollar," pitching him a coin, "take this 
bag up to the hotel, will you ? ' ' Quick as a flash came the 
response, "Here, you! here's a dollar, take it up yourself.' ' 

Before houses were built, or the sand anchored in place 
by the grass roots, the winds from the ocean, which set ia 
every summer morning about ten o'clock, had a clear sweep 
over the northern end of the Peninsula, and took advantage 
of it by stinging the face with the flying sand and playing 
havoc with things movable. A witness in the Limantour 
land suit when asked what he was doing at Yerba Buena 
at that early day said, "I thought I would buy some lots 
there." 

"Well, did you buy them?" 

"Who, me? No." 

"Why not?" 

"I'll tell you why. I wouldn't have 'em. I was walk- 
ing along down by the water and the wind blew my hat off, 
and I couldn't catch it in less than half a mile, and I said 
I wouldn't live in the damned place." 

In one of my visits to Coloma, I asked: 

"Who is the lord-aboriginal of this domain?" 

"George Washington." 

"Tell George Washington to come to me and get five 
dollars." 

Next morning a prostrate form was seen sleeping in 



THE CALL OF GOLD 107 

the hotel yard face downward in the grass. Stirred gently 
with the foot, his Excellency sat up, with a grunt, rolled 
some cut plug tobacco in the form of a cigarette, and strik- 
ing a match on the sole of his bare foot, began to smoke. 

"You high muck-a-muck here George ?" 

"Yas, gotambread?" 

"Ah, your Excellency has not breakfasted. Kindly go 
to the kitchen and tell them I sent you." 

He had trotted in from his camp twenty miles away 
during the night. 

He spent the day entertained and entertaining. Among 
the questions asked: 

"Your people burn their dead, do they not, George!" 

"No, no burn 'em now. One time burn 'era. Mlis'- 
nary man, he say, burn 'em, no come up, no burn 'em, 
come up; we no burn 'em now." 

After the first year of flush times, while yet the popu- 
lation was rapidly increasing and before reaction set in, 
the laying out of town-sites was of frequent occurrence. 

Places which for a time were of some pretensions were 
New York-of-the-Pacific, at the junction of the San Joaquin 
river and Suisun bay ; Boston, at the junction of the Ameri- 
can and Sacramento rivers; Vernon on Feather river, and 
Sutter on the Sacramento. A hundred mining camps 
sprang into life; a few of them remained and became 
towns, but the most of them soon disappeared, leaving 
neither name nor mark of any kind to denote their brief 
existence. Three soon became conspicuous as points of 
departure for the northern, central, and southern mines 
respectively; that is to say Sutter's Sacramento; Marys- 
ville, so named from an early Mary on Yuba river; and 
Charles Weber's Stockton. 

Quite an epidemic of speculation sprang up at near 
and distant points. 

The instincts of the town-site hunters which led them 
to and beyond Carquinez strait were by no means mislead- 



108 RETROSPECTION 

ing, for there is no spot on earth more favorable for an 
imperial city than that. 

Thus commerce and industries in California displayed 
their vagaries in common with all else. The presence of 
gold did not permanently enhance the value of the land, 
but it hastened its occupation and development. 

Nations are made as forests grow, a perpetual dying 
down and rising up. All along the Foothills, in the 
vestiges of the mining camps and in the towns below are 
remnants of the old days, human debris, broken on the 
wheel of adventure, failures they are commonly called, 
and are in so far as they themselves are concerned, but 
not failures in the building of the commonwealth, for the 
commonwealth is established by those who fail. 

Shall we call the life of a Napoleon one of success or 
failure? If the former, then we may ask what is success 
and what is it worth, ministering as it does to personal 
greed and public debauchery ; if the latter, then failure is 
more successful than success. 

The Pacific Mail Steamship company was an influen- 
tial factor in the early affairs of the Pacific coast. At 
first a benefit to the people who supported it, later a curse 
to the country when the railway took possession and used 
it to assist in defrauding the people. 

Land titles were a source of endless litigation, as well 
in relation to Mexican grants as to pueblo lands and the 
mines. As soon as anything became conspicuous in value 
it was not difficult to find disputants. So much was ac- 
quired by simple seizure that squatter rights became an 
influential element of possession, yet there was but little 
disturbance in regard to these titles in San Francisco until 
after the district assembly had been dissolved by Governor 
Riley. 

Titles to property, or the lack of titles, were early and 
for a time continuously a source of trouble to many, and 
proved a fruitful field for the lawyers. Chief among 
these in land cases was Gregory Yale, a ripe scholar and 



THE CALL OF GOLD 109 

able lawyer, and a gentleman in any one of his ever- vary- 
ing moods; short, thick set, and demonstrative; drank like 
a fish but was never drunk; face fat and red as a lobster, 
mind alert and sharp as steel, and tongue as eloquent as 
any that ever charmed a court. 

In the country were the Mexican allotments, and in the 
town alcalde grants, all disturbed by claimants of many 
sorts, as settler, squatter, purchaser, and thief. Lacking 
valid titles were city slips, water lots, pueblo grants, and 
a score of others. 

Another incident upon which turned the destinies of 
the nation, the writer of this Retrospection cannot pass by 
without mention. For one may truthfully claim, as I 
have already done, that but for the loyalty of California as 
well as her gold during the civil war it would have gone 
hard with the federal government. 

But why California more than some one of the other 
states ? Because, first, San Francisco was the headquarters 
of the army of the Pacific. Secondly, because of the iso- 
lation of the western coast, with no available communica- 
tion save the coaches from Independence. Thirdly, be- 
cause of the ease with which California could have thrown 
off allegiance to the federal union, so many of secession 
proclivities being present who would gladly have declared 
for independence and slavery. How well the two words 
sound together! General Johnston, at the head of the 
army in California at the time, was himself chief of rebels. 
Fourthly, as some think of the great hearts then throbbing 
in California for freedom and a united country, so others 
will remember the gold we gave and place it to our credit 
on congressional records, and the pages of presidential 
messages, even though the proverbial ingratitude of re- 
publics should not fail when asked for a temporary re- 
mission of duties on lumber, as a deliverance from the 
unjust exactions of material-men combined against the 
rebuilders of the city after the catastrophe of 1906. 



110 RETROSPECTION 

Missionaries of ardent imaginations thought they saw 
in a journey to Washington by Marcus Whitman the sav- 
ing to the United States of Oregon, a land never lost or 
saved by any one, least of all by Mr. Whitman. 

E. R. Kennedy has written a book to show how "E. 
D. Baker saved the Pacific States to the Union," a pre- 
tence somewhat startling to those who knew Mr. Baker as 
a seedy politician who sometimes paid a bill, a man of little 
weight or standing in the community, though a good talker, 
and as a soldier reckless enough to get himself quickly 
killed. 

Foremost in every good work was Thomas Starr King, 
who probably did more than any other one man to make 
sure of the loyalty of California. Night after night he 
thrilled the hearts of the multitude that thronged his 
lecture-room with eloquent appeals for a free and united 
country. 

At the first Sanitary Commission meeting held in San 
Francisco, in September, 1862, at Piatt's hall, after stirring 
speeches by Eugene Casserly, Frederick Billings, Edward 
Tompkins, and others, Starr King arose and said: " After 
what you have heard, words of mine were superfluous. 
Deeds, however, are in order, though no one will be asked 
for a subscription here to-night. But when the time comes 
— turning to Mayor Teschemacher who presided, — "the 
president will give one thousand dollars, the Pacific Mail 
Steamship company will give one thousand dollars, the 
Ophir Mining company will give one thousand dollars, and 
every vice president on the platform — there are about 
seventy — will give five hundred dollars each." 

Thus was set the pace of this philanthropy. The sev- 
eral persons and properties gave about as Mr. King had 
suggested, and these contributions considering the men and 
the times, were equivalent to ten times the same amounts 
to-day. Thus did California, while the rebel southern 
state whose brutal senator treated with insult our request 
for protection from avaricious material-men at the time 



THE CALL OF GOLD 111 

of the fire of 1906 was playing the part of renegade and 
traitor. Our lawmakers had sold themselves to the spoilers, 
and our state had no redress. 

The reaction of California on the eastern states was in 
some respects not unlike the reaction of the New World on 
Spain. There was a general awakening to the importance 
of the present and the probabilities of the future. In 
Spain, manufactures which at first were stimulated by 
the influx of gold went over to France and England when 
idleness and luxury came. In the United States com- 
merce and industries everywhere started up afresh, and 
although cotton manufactures drifted southward and 
westward, the civil war came on to give a still further 
impetus to business before it had time greatly to languish, 
though over-trading began to be felt in the early fifties. 

As the gold-seekers began to return, some with well- 
filled pouches but more with lame excuses for failure, a 
feverish desire for speculation overspread the country and 
led to all sorts of industrial ventures. 

Queer conceptions at home — home always meant the 
eastern states — were formed from various reports of the 
conditions of things in California, often without much 
discernment between life in the towns and in the mines. 

For example, the impression formed of life in the 
mines from the earliest pictures and reports were hatless 
bearded men, in woolen shirt and cowhide boots, standing 
in the water and washing out gold from a tin pan. Or it 
might be cooking in the open, before a brush hut, or wash- 
ing dishes — though for that matter the dishes were often 
left unwashed — or at a stag dance in the saloon, or in a 
hanging affair or a shooting scrape ; so that at the New Eng- 
land homestead, some day when a fine groomed figure 
rushed in clasping mother and sisters in his arms, the father 
with uplifted hands mi^ht well exclaim, "Well, I swan, 
if you don't look jest like other folks!" 

He could not avoid a little swagger, this returned Cali- 



112 RETROSPECTION 

fornian, as he "chucked" his metal money about, regard- 
ing "shinplasters" with contempt and refusing to handle 
copper cents. No wonder that visions of opulence arose 
in the minds of those hitherto content with moderate aspira- 
tions as this lordly individual, fresh from the gold-fields, 
affected to hold their poor riches in such light esteem, 
though he himself might not have ten dollars left in his 
pocket. 

As a rule the master minds of the fifties and sixties 
first served a shorter or longer apprenticeship in the mines. 
But whether for a shorter or longer period, the head soon 
got the better of the hands, the latter refusing to dig, the 
former demanding to do all the work. 

D. 0. Mills and Lloyd Tevis met there and talked about 
the future, building air castles in the river bed, and lay- 
ing out plans over the sluice-box, speculating as to what 
they would do in the city when they had gathered some 
gold. Meeting later they compared notes, and remarked how 
nearly their lives had been squared to their earlier ambi- 
tion, and how much more satisfactory the gold-fleecing of 
men in town was to the argonaut business in the moun- 
tains. 

Collis P. Huntington was there and soon claimed every- 
thing in sight as his own, and by the mere force of his 
dominant will and shrewd tongue was able to hold a 
sufficient share of it. Stanford was there, only to look 
wise while others did the work. Flood and O'Brien, also 
Mackay and Fair, came forward later, but were none the 
less in evidence. Sharon and Ralston manipulated banks 
and mines in unison, yet were at arms length apart; one 
went up and the other down, the latter, by playing deity 
at large, was caught at last in the toils of his former drink- 
sellers. Lucky Baldwin, not so lucky in love as in lucre, 
made and lost many fortunes, yet leaving enough for 
claimants to quarrel over. Mike Reese, grub-staker, put 
up money against the other fellow's life and sent him 
forth to find gold. Mike's title-deeds were the bulkiest, 



THE CALL OF GOLD 113 

his features were the most brutal, and his raiment the 
filthiest of any in the city. 

Another, bankrupt banker, wherefore a rich man; a 
ladies man, wherefore a book printed and published by one 
of his ladies, entitled Love Life of an Ancient Charmer, 
brought shame to him, and the gay though gray deceiver 
sought to repress it, but with indifferent success. Strange a 
man so conspicuous in high society and so iron-bound in low, 
could frame such silly stuff as this that in his Love Life 
he pours forth to his dilapidated divinity. When the 
civil war broke out he disappeared for a short time, and 
on his return he called himself general; why, he did not 
say. 

Samuel Brannan did not himself work in the mines; 
working his Saints was pleasanter and more profitable. 

Many of the best business men of the cities had their 
fling in the Foothills, as Peter Nay lor, D. J. Oliver, W. E. 
Rowland, A. A. Austin, G. B. Post, W. H. Davis, J. B. 
Bidleman, Thomas H. Selby, George B. Gibbs, H. F. Will- 
iams, A. R. Flint, G. E. Tyler, J. W. Tucker, E. H. Parker, 
W. H. Mosher, John C. Fall, of Marysville, H. A. Roberts, 
of Sacramento, and hundreds of others. 

Such were the real representative men of the mines, 
in greater or less degree, with greater or less force and 
purpose — a gathering most remarkable in quality and 
variety, and one such as had never before been seen. 
These, graded up to the United States supreme court, and 
down into the ditch, and out into the eternal darkness, 
were the true men of the mines, and not the dilettante 
gamblers and gunners of argonaut story. 



CHAPTER VII 

AN ARTLESS ADVENTURER 

TWO Years Before the Mast; and because the boy was 
of Harvard and the Mast of Boston the book lived, 
and still lives, immortal upon Doctor Eliot's five-foot shelf. 

There was nothing remarkable about the boy, or the 
mast, or the voyage. Scores of vessels had traded along 
the coast of California before the year 1835 for hides and 
tallow, dry, crackling, bad-smelling cattle-hides and greasy 
tallow, and found nothing romantic or specially instructive 
in the traffic. The missions were still in their glory, be- 
fore the despoiling of secularization had come to them, 
while the bright-eyed dusky sefioritas might still be seen 
peeping out from arbors of luscious grapes, — ardent 
grapes and ardent sefioritas, all too dusky maidens with 
maidenly yearnings for something white of skin to marry. 

It was some time in March, 1852, that I first landed in 
San Francisco. I was not yet twenty years of age, and 
too absolutely fresh and inexperienced to be anything but 
honest. Why my late employer, supposed to be possessed 
of ordinary bookselling sanity, should have sent me at 
such an age, to such a place, and for such a purpose as to 
sell and publish books, I could never imagine. 

That he had married my sister was scarcely a sufficient 
reason, for during the entire four years I was with him in 
the Buffalo bookstore, or until his younger brother came 
to relieve me of the infliction, he put in train and kept in 
motion a most extraordinary nagging and petty persecu- 
tion such as set my sensitive soul on fire, and kept it ablaze 
during all these tormenting days and years. 

114 



AN ARTLESS ADVENTURER 115 

Also I felt it all to be so unjust, for I was on my metal 
to do my best. I was ambitious and conscientious, not too 
amiable or respectful; yet in my efforts to get forward I 
found him always in the way, a snarling post of obstruction. 

I threw up the situation and went home, but I was not 
to escape so easily. He took too much pleasure in my 
misery to lose it in that way. So when he called me back, 
knowing as I did that at heart he was a good fellow, kind 
and liberal, and that he applied to me his erosive methods 
only because he thought them the right way in which to 
bring up boys, I returned. 

And I met my reward. It was in the form of the 
aforesaid younger brother of his seated at the table and 
receiving on his devoted head, with an air of impudent in- 
difference, the caustic criticisms hitherto so liberally be- 
stowed upon me; for it was in the family circle that the 
master was pleased to shower upon us his business bene- 
dictions. 

The brother was quite lame, with hair of a rustier red 
than his brother's; hearty, heartless, immoral, and by na- 
ture bad throughout. Older than I, much older in sin, I 
did not greatly care for his society, but I felt always grate- 
ful for the peace I found through his vicarious sufferings 
at the dinner-table. 

The evolution of population, the blending of races 
following the discovery of gold in California began with 
the journey thither, which exercised as marked an influ- 
ence upon the young and inexperienced adventurer as 
anything that followed. 

The world was larger then than now, and the mind of 
man was smaller. To the verdant youth fresh from in- 
land pastures ocean life was a revelation ; to an unen- 
lightened inhabitant of the wintry north tropical life was 
a garden of the Hesperides. No one ever left New York 
by any route and arrived at San Francisco the same per- 
son, but the changes wrought in mind or imagination by 
the strange sights along Panama way and across the 



116 RETROSPECTION 

Isthmus were more sudden and overwhelming than those 
experienced in the long monotonous voyage round South 
America, or even in the vivifying scenes of overland 
phenomena, with its return to primitive life, and the ever 
varying displays of shifting frontiers and a dissolving 
wilderness. 

Life on the steamer, — generally overcrowded with its 
three grades of passengers, cabin, second cabin, and steer- 
age, with stifling tropical heat and sickly smells, poor food 
badly served and the jarring thud of the never-resting 
machinery; always every day to see the same tired and 
tiresome faces of the passengers and the coarse ill-natured 
features of officers and crew — was productive of many 
original reflections. 

I sailed from New York in February, and was about six 
weeks on the way, spending two of them on the Isthmus. 
Three or four days brought our steamer, the Ohio, to 
Havana. Shedding there the outer skin of rusticity, our 
passengers were transferred to the steamer George Law, 
which came from New Orleans to meet us there and carry 
us to the Isthmus, stopping at Jamaica for coal, so that on 
this my first voyage I saw more of the West Indies than 
in any one of my several subsequent voyages made in the 
capacity of San Francisco merchant. 

The observant eye of the youthful traveller was quickly 
taken by the dark lowering features and light summery 
dress of the Spanish men, and the bright features and 
sombre robes of the women. Attention was also attracted 
by the all-compelling voiture, with its large wheels and 
small mule at the end of the long shafts, which gave the 
little beast all the room it required for kicking when 
prodded by its large heavy driver, sometimes astride its 
back, sometimes perched upon the whiffletree. 

With a dusty tramp to the bishop's garden and a 
frugal repast the day came to a close, and with it my 
first insight into Spanish colonial life. I was quite ready 
for a continuance of the voyage. 



AN ARTLESS ADVENTURER 117 

As I sat on a coil of rope watching our passengers 
coming up the gang-plank of the George Law prior to sail- 
ing, I was unwittingly a witness to certain kindergarten 
lessons in graft, the first, but I am sorry to say not the 
last similar experience of many of the young Americans of 
that day. 

Cigars were the chief temptation then. For twenty 
dollars a thousand better cigars could be purchased in 
Cuba than fifty dollars would buy in California, or than 
could now be elsewhere obtained for a hundred and fifty dol- 
lars a thousand. Naturally, therefore, the California bound 
bought cigars, one, or two, or three thousand each, and 
when they inquired of the affable seller as to the export 
duty, "Oh," he said, "just give the customs officer on 
board half a dollar and you will not be troubled." 

What I saw as I sat there was this officer, jabbering and 
wildly gesticulating with outstretched arms as he pocketed 
the half dollars thrust upon him, one after another, by the 
passengers, each with his load of cigars. Afterward I 
learned that this petty bribery was but a part of a system 
extending throughout Spanish America, and indeed 
throughout the Spanish world, it being the custom of 
masters of vessels on entering a port to pay, in the form of 
a bribe, one half or one quarter of what the duties would 
amount to, or pay the whole of the duties in the legitimate 
way, as his honesty or cupidity dictated. Afterward I 
learned further that in American ports there was not so 
much Spanish jabbering and gesticulating over much larger 
amounts than half a dollar, which were promptly pocketed 
all the same. 

At Jamaica, where we stopped for coal, which was 
carried on in sacks or baskets poised on the head of half- 
naked females of ebony hue, we saw the African at his 
best, or worst, laziness and licentiousness being the chief 
characteristics. 

But they were happy. The women enjoyed their im- 
morality and the men their laziness, especially the laziness 
5 



118 RETROSPECTION 

of officeholding, where there was little work and much au- 
thority. 

Here was the result of an experiment which had given 
the race an opportunity to vindicate the claims set up for 
it by the benevolent, but which they had employed to little 
purpose. But is it not expecting too much of human de- 
velopment that it should produce in the unfolding what is 
not to be found in the germ? 

Arrived at the Isthmus, preparations were made to 
disembark at the mouth of the Chagres river as usual; 
whereupon we were informed that the Panama railway was 
in operation for a distance of five miles, and that instead 
of taking boat at the mouth of the Chagres we were to 
be landed at Colon, and carried over this five miles of rails 
for a fare of five dollars each, paying the same for boat 
hire from the terminus of the railway as we would have 
paid from the mouth of the river. The latter-day policy 
of corporate honor was not yet known in railway manage- 
ment. Upon the completion of this the most remarkable 
road in America the fare was reduced from a dollar a 
mile to twenty-five dollars for forty-eight miles. 

Were it possible to write the romance of the Isthmus, 
to tell the tales of brave adventure and give the experiences 
of priests, traders, and conquerors, President Eliot might 
omit from his list the Arabian Nights, and fill his entire 
five feet from what here might be gathered. 

It was along these shores that Columbus sailed seeking 
a waterway to India. Here Rodrigo de Bastidas traded 
and Juan de la Cosa made explorations; here Alonso de 
Ojeda and Diego de Nicuesa indulged in their memorable 
quarrel, Vasco Nunez de Balboa gaining the supremacy. 
It was from this narrow neck of land, on the 25th day of 
September, 1513, that Balboa first saw the Pacific ocean, into 
which he waded, and with drawn sword, and the bombastic 
declamation of the day took possession for the king of 
Spain of all those waters, shores and islands. Building 



AN ARTLESS ADVENTURER 119 

boats he fished for pearls at the islands off Panama, and 
made discoveries up and down the coast, affianced the 
daughter of Pedrarias, the governor, who became jealous 
of the dashing young cavalier and finally wrought his 
ruin. 

It was from here that Francisco Pizarro sailed for 
the conquest of Peru, Gil Gonzales for Nicaragua, and 
Andres Nino for the Spice islands. It was from Darien 
that the several expeditions in search of the golden temple 
of Dabaiba were made; it was at Darien that the Scots 
colony of well-born Scotch and English adventurers came 
to grief, as we have seen. It was from Nombre de Dios 
that Gonzalo de Badajoz set out on his expedition for the 
South sea. 

The mule trail from Nombre de Dios to Panama was 
cleared of obstruction, widened and erected into the first 
official interoceanic roadway over which passed the product 
of the American mines and the rich cargoes of the galleons 
from Manila and China. 

Then came the long period of piracy, fostered by the 
exposed wealth on land and the richly laden ships at sea. 
There were Morgan and his men, and Francis Drake, and 
Oxenham, with endless thrilling accounts of sacked cities 
and captured treasure trains. 

When Vasco Nunez descended from the hill of Quare- 
qua to gather in his arms the great South sea, he came 
upon a collection of huts by the water's edge which the 
natives called panamd, afterward seized and held by Tello 
de Guzman. 

This was the site of old Panama, which in 1517 the 
governor, Pedrarias Davilla, determined to make the seat 
of government, and entrepot for the gold and merchandise 
of the Pacific destined for Spain, with a chain of posts to 
Nombre de Dios. 

Mention is made of this road and this city by the 
chronicler Benzoni, who travelled in Darien about 1541. 
He says that the Panama hamlet consisted of about 120 



120 RETROSPECTION 

houses built of reeds and boards and roofed with shingles, 
in and around which lived 4000 people. 

During the first day's journey to Nombre de Dios, the 
road, about 50 miles in length, was fairly smooth, the re- 
mainder being rugged and the streams almost impassable 
during the rainy seasons. The forests were dense and for- 
bidding, and of the Benzoni party were twenty negro 
slaves to clear the path of under-brush and fallen trees. 

Though doomed ere long to die, this ancient Panama 
was destined first to become the richest and mightiest 
metropolis in all the two Americas. Before the end of the 
century the isthmus of Darien had become the gateway 
between the two seas, and Panama the most important 
place in connection with the economic development of the 
New World. Situated upon the world's highway, in the 
centre of the Spanish colonial possessions, through its 
portals must pass the treasures of the northern and 
southern coasts, the islands of the South sea and of the 
Indies beyond. It was the half-way house and the toll- 
gate between eastern Asia and Europe, the mart of the 
western world where men of all nationalities and colors 
met and made their exchanges, the merchant princes of 
the east and the west, the raw adventurer outward bound 
and the returned fortune-seeker, elated with success or 
broken-spirited through failure. 

The key to commerce, Panama was likewise the key to 
political supremacy. By holding the Isthmus, the king of 
Spain held the Pacific. Expeditions for conquest were 
here fitted out where they might fall back for support and 
supplies. Without Panama Francisco Pizarro never could 
have conquered Peru, still less have held the country in 
the face of the brave Manco Capac. 

The central position and the command of both oceans 
which gave to Panama her wealth and power also exposed 
her to political convulsions and attack from foreign foes. 
An insurrection in Guatemala, a rebellion in Peru, a change 
of restrictions in Asiatic trade were immediately felt at 



AN ARTLESS ADVENTURER 121 

Panama, and upon her fell the heaviest blows aimed by 
the English, French, and Dutch in the West Indies against 
Spain. The city was several times captured by pirates 
and held for ransom or burned. 

Such was the ancient original Panama of three hun- 
dred years ago; will the Panama of the canal be able to 
make proportionately as brilliant a showing three hun- 
dred years hence? Let us hope that it may. 

A morass on either side with deadly malaria its native 
air, there had long been talk of moving the city of Panama 
to a better locality; or rather of obliterating the old and 
building anew, for cities are not among things movable, 
unless under absolute or imperial rule, as in the case of 
Nombre de Dios, where the surveyor reported, "If it might 
please your Majesty, it were good that the city of Nombre 
de Dios be brought and builded in this harbor/ ' and the 
thing was done. 

Andagoya was not in favor of the change. "God him- 
self selected this site, ' ' he says, though he does not give the 
source of his information. And further, "There is no 
other port in all the South sea where vessels can anchor 
alongside the streets.' ' 

Nevertheless, upon the capture and burning of the city 
by the pirate Morgan, who also carried away for sale or 
ransom six hundred prisoners, it was ordered by the Span- 
ish court that the city should be rebuilt on a new site which 
had been selected some two leagues away. The new 
Panama was laid out in 1671 in the form of a square, with 
moat and walls so costly that the council in Spain wrote 
asking if the fortifications of Panama were of silver or of 
gold. 

There were many schemes afloat for an interoceanic 
waterway prior to the French failure, of which an account 
is given in a subsequent chapter. 

Among the passengers for California were many thought- 
less and careless young fellows giving little heed to health, 



122 RETROSPECTION 

and adopting no measures for its preservation. The 
Isthmus malaria, in its effects then called Panama fever, 
found easy victims. Embarking at night on the river we 
had the full benefit of its deadly vapors before morning. 
Nevertheless we lived — some of us. 

These boys of sixty years ago, now for the first time 
from home, young men or men of middle age, knew little 
of the dangers from disease to which they were exposed. 
The general hygiene of the later canal builders who lived 
as safely here as in the northern latitudes would have been 
beyond their comprehension. 

It is said of the Chinese who worked on the Panama 
railway that they died of malarial fever and other diseases 
incident to the climate in such numbers that their bodies 
laid at length would have extended along the whole forty- 
eight miles of track, and that hundreds hanged themselves 
for fear they should die. The natives of the island in the 
days of Columbus, driven by the Spaniards, hanged them- 
selves to trees rather than work. The feeling in both in- 
stances was similar yet not the same: they were all alike 
victims of discouragement. 

During the time of this my first Isthmus transit, as 
well as in the years that followed, all who fell sick were 
treated by their fellow-travellers, though strangers to them, 
with unselfish kindness. Only the transportation com- 
pany's officials and servants were indifferent or brutal. 
This insidious disease, thus picked up at Panama, remained 
in the system dormant often for months, and then broke 
out in virulent form in the mines, or elsewhere. Some- 
times it remained with its victims through life. 

Forced to part with their baggag*e, many of the travel- 
lers never saw it again, piles of it going to swell the profits 
of the native transportation contractors. 

Disembarking at Gorgona the passengers took the trail, 
on foot or mule-back, twelve miles to Panama. There they 
must remain for days or weeks or months perhaps, until 
they could find passage by steamer or sail, for there were 



AN ARTLESS ADVENTURER 123 

always those who came ill-provided with through transpor- 
tation. 

Gross impositions were practised on the passengers by 
the New York owners of the steamship lines, who some- 
times sold transportation to twice the capacity of the ship, 
and sent thousands to their death from delay on the 
Isthmus. The steamers on the Pacific side were cleaner 
and more commodious, and once safe on board with berth 
secured, some comfort might be found if the vessel were 
not overcrowded. 

When the traffic became settled the steamers from New 
York made the whole distance without stopping, and 
managed to arrive at the Isthmus during the night or in 
the early morning. The passengers, mails, and fast freight 
were at once disembarked and sent to the steamer at 
Panama, which left the same night. The slow freight, the 
through rate for which was twenty dollars a ton, fast 
freight being double, was transferred between steamers, 
thus remaining over one steamer on the Isthmus. 

If the journey to California was a transmigration of 
the soul the landing at San Francisco in the early fifties was a 
dump into Dante's inferno. The streets were slush knee- 
deep in winter, and in summer the strong unobstructed 
ocean wind laden with fine particles of sand brought regu- 
larly every day at ten o'clock stinging to the face and bad 
words to the tongue. But at intervals when the wind 
ceased, and the slush subsided, the aromatic air tinctured 
with the salt of ocean came down from the dunes through 
the scraggly oaks and chaparral like the soft wind of 
heaven. 

But if God reigned sometimes by day Satan ruled the 
night. While all else to the innocent adventurers far from 
home was cold and dark and dreary the great gambling 
houses, at a rental of from two hundred to five hundred 
dollars a day, blazed with light and warmth and luxury ; 
for the whiskey at fifty cents a drink was not so bad as 



124 RETROSPECTION 

some these same fellows found later in the mines, and 
now being unaccustomed to its free use a little of it went 
farther. 

A San Francisco gambling palace of '49 and '50, — a 
long, wide room, with deep vistas of tables covered with 
green cloth and piles of gold and clattering gambling ma- 
chinery, thronged with a silent humanity of mixed rough 
bearded men in woolen shirts and slouched hats, mount- 
ing upward in various grades, until the gentlemen in white 
shirt and silk stovepipe are reached. On one side stands 
a gorgeous bar, a long counter behind which mirrored 
walls reflect cut glass, bright fluids, and fantastic orna- 
ments, a dozen white-coated ministering spirits attending; 
on the other side a braying band of music. The floor is 
covered with chairs and the walls with large lascivious 
paintings, the ceiling thickly studded with blazing chande- 
liers. Here may the weary one, safe from the cold out- 
side drizzle, sit snug and dream of home, or empty his 
pockets at the tables, drinking at the bar for courage and 
luck. Here may he rise from his reverie of home re- 
turning, of the ocean voyage back, the railway journey 
following it, the lumbering omnibus ride to his door, the 
shout of greeting, the joyous inrush, the outstretched arms, 
and the clasping heart to heart of wife and children, of 
sweetheart and sisters, the bringing out of presents, the 
excited talk late into the night of things nearest to them, 
how they had fared, how he had fared, and the quiet 
peace of the morrow when for the first time in months or 
years he feels that he can indeed rest. 

Then the other picture, a hut in the chaparral or 
among the pines, by day shoveling in the water, hammer- 
ing on the flume, prying among the boulders, digging in 
the shaft or tunnel ; at night frying meat and baking bread 
in the ashes, a turn among the roysterers of the saloons, 
drinks of fiery whiskey and chats with the harlots of the 
hall; on Sunday washing of clothes, more whiskey and 
perchance some shooting, all the while the heart sore 



AN ARTLESS ADVENTURER 125 

within by reason of departed manhood and moral degra- 
dation. 

What a contrast in this reverie of returns! See him 
now as rising from his seat he draws from his pocket a 
little leather bag of gold-dust, and approaching the table 
he lays it on a card. "By God I'll chance it; home or 
the mines I" 

Before starting from home or soon after his arrival in 
California, the gold-smitten adventurer has named the 
time of his return, and that time is daily looked forward 
to with a longing such as few others have ever experienced. 
And safely bestowed at home again, after a brief period of 
enjoyment, he longs for California once more. California 
with all her sins upon her, with all the trials and temptations, 
the successes and failures, to him who has once tasted of her 
fascinations, who has breathed the electrical air and felt 
the stimulating sun strike into his veins, there is no other 
place in which to live or die. 

Many a good man has fought out the battle of life in 
the Sierra foothills, or on the dunes of San Francisco, and 
gone his way leaving no mark other than the impress of 
soul upon human progress. Yet that should suffice; if 
we search intelligently and follow faithfully our own 
interests, we may be very sure that we are at the same 
time living to the interests of our fellow men. 

The typical returning Californian of the early days, 
fresh from his baptism in a new economic environment, 
was a fine specimen of American manhood, as elsewhere I 
have intimated. Tall, strong, and self-contained, some- 
times coarse but always courteous and with a chivalrous 
consideration for women and children, he formed a strik- 
ing contrast to the awkward and somewhat verdant youth 
that had left his home some years ago. 

Montgomery street was the Wall street of the city then, 
and remained so for twenty years thereafter. The water 
of the Cove at first came up to it at Jackson street, extend- 



126 RETROSPECTION 

ing in a lagoon up Jackson street half way to Kearny. 
California street, supported by one house only, that of 
Alsop and company, marked the southern business limit, 
and Front street the eastern. 

Steamer days had become an institution ; twice or three 
times a month there was an arrival and a departure, oftener 
than that when the Nicaragua line was in operation. Busi- 
ness transactions dated from one steamer day to another, 
the day before departure being collection day. As for 
the day of arrival, as the time approached, wistful eyes 
were cast upon the long-armed post surmounting Tele- 
graph hill for the expected signal, for besides business and 
merchandise, were there not blessed letters from home, and 
friends perhaps expected? 

Telegraph hill became historic. The worst element of 
the town camped at its foot, and the dead were buried on 
its sides. Outgoing sailing-vessels sliced it off for ballast 
at the time when ships came to California laden with mer- 
chandise and went empty away. Later when the age of 
grain arrived vessels came empty and went away loaded. 
All of which was emblematic of the doing and undoing of 
things in California. 

Of late sentimentalists would cleanse the inhabitants, 
teach the use of the fork instead of the fingers, and restore 
and beautify the hill. Why? On the northern side at 
the base, when the signaling began, there were pig-sties ; 
in the proposed restoration, with the lumbering signal 
machine on top, should we restore the graves of the dead 
Italians, and the pig-sties, and the ghastly scar left by 
the ballast-shippers, while the remainder of this very dirty 
dirt could be advantageously used in filling back of much 
needed bulkheads for commercial purposes, and while so 
near at hand is Russian hill, which with winding roads 
and villa sites on its bluff sides facing the Golden Gate 
and bay could be beautified to one's heart's content, and 
made one of the most picturesque places in the world? 

Prom the plaza, or Portsmouth square, a path led along 



AN ARTLESS ADVENTURER 127 

where is now Kearny street, round the Sutter street hill 
into St. Ann valley, where a covering of scraggy oaks sup- 
plied fire-wood to be delivered at forty dollars a cord, 
and so on to the Mission through Hayes valley where grew 
an abundance of wild strawberries. 

The trail from the Presidio entered Kearny street north 
of the plaza, deflecting west at Pine. 

Mr. Neall, a prominent citizen of the time and place, 
informs me that he and other business men of San Fran- 
cisco in the spring of 1849 would often on a quiet Sunday 
tie their tent strings and go gunning over the dunes leav- 
ing twenty-five or fifty thousand dollars in gold-dust locked 
in a little iron box that a blow of the hammer would break 
in pieces. 

Words dropped by an experienced traveller and close 
observer like Bayard Taylor, who was in California in 
1849, bring into high relief the salient features in a pic- 
ture of the times. 

At San Diego "before the hide-houses at the landing- 
place" his steamer, upward bound from the Isthmus, came 
to anchor. It was the same steamer, the Panama, upon 
which the writer of this Retrospection made his first voyage 
on the Pacific three years later, his vessel anchoring in the 
same place for fire-wood, driven thither by a storm outside 
which had exhausted her coal; the same landing-place 
where the boy Dana, fourteen years before Taylor, had 
scooted his dried cattle-hides down the bluff. It was on 
the south side of Point Loma, where was afterward Rose- 
ville. 

"The old hide-houses," Taylor goes on to say, "are 
built at the foot of the hills just inside the bay, and a fine 
road along the shore leads to the town of San Diego, which 
is situated on a plain three miles distant and barely visible 
from the anchorage. Above the houses on a little eminence 
several tents were planted, and a short distance further 
were several recent graves surrounded by paling. A imm- 



128 RETROSPECTION 

ber of people were clustered on the beach, and boats laden 
with passengers and freight instantly put off to us. In a 
few minutes after our gun was fired we could see horse- 
men coming down from San Diego at full gallop, one of 
whom carried behind him a lady in graceful riding cos- 
tume. In the first boat were Colonel Weller, U. S. Boun- 
dary Commissioner, and Major Hill, of the army. Then 
followed a number of men, lank and brown ' as is the ribbed 
sea-sand,' — men with long hair and beards, and faces from 
which the rigid expression of suffering was scarcely re- 
laxed. They were the first of the overland emigrants by 
the Gila route, who had reached San Diego a few days be- 
fore. Their clothes were in tatters, their boots, in many 
cases, replaced by moccasins, and, except their rifles and 
some small packages rolled in deerskin, they had noth- 
ing left of the abundant stores with which they left 
home. ' ' 

Passing on to Monterey, "a handsome fort, on an emi- 
nence near the sea, returned our salute. Four vessels, 
shattered, weather-beaten, and apparently deserted, lay at 
anchor not far from shore. The town is larger than I ex- 
pected to find it, and from the water has the air of a large 
New England village, barring the adobe houses.' ' 

Dropping anchor in San Francisco bay opposite the 
main landing outside of a forest of masts as the gun of the 
Panama announces her arrival, a glimpse of the town is 
caught. " Around the curving shore of the Bay and upon 
the sides of three hills which rise steeply from the water, 
the middle one receding so as to form a bold amphitheatre, 
the town is planted and seems scarcely yet to have taken 
root, for tents, canvas, plank, mud, and adobe houses are 
mingled together with the least apparent attempt at order 
and durability. The boat put us ashore at the northern 
point of the anchorage, at the foot of a steep bank, from 
which a high pier had been built into the bay. A large 
vessel lay at the end discharging her cargo. We scrambled 
up through piles of luggage. A furious wind was blowing 






AN ARTLESS ADVENTURER 129 

down through a gap in the hills filling the streets with 
clouds of dust. Great quantities of goods were piled up in 
the open air for want of a place to store them. Many of 
the passengers began speculation at the moment of land- 
ing. The most ingenious and successful operation was 
made by a gentleman of New York, who took out fifteen 
hundred copies of The Tribune and other papers, which he 
disposed of in two hours at one dollar a-piece ! Hearing of 
this I bethought me of about a dozen papers which I had 
used to fill up crevices in packing my valise. There was a 
newspaper merchant at the corner of the City hotel, and 
to him I proposed the sale of them, asking him to name a 
price. "I shall want to make a good profit on the retail 
price," said he, "and can't give more than ten dollars for 
the lot." I was satisfied with the wholesale price, which 
was a gain of just four thousand per cent! I set out for 
a walk before dark and climbed a hill back of the town, 
passing a number of tents pitched in the hollows. The 
scattered houses spread out below me, and the crowded 
shipping in the harbor, backed by a lofty line of moun- 
tains made an imposing picture. The restless, feverish 
tide of life in that little spot, and the thought that what 
I then saw and was yet to see will hereafter fill one of the 
most marvelous pages of all history rendered it singularly 
impressive. Every new-comer in San Francisco is over- 
taken with a sense of complete bewilderment. A gentle- 
man who arrived in April told me he then found but thirty 
or forty houses; the population was then so scant that not 
more than twenty-five persons would be seen in the streets 
at any one time. Now, there were probably five. hundred 
houses, tents and sheds, with a population fixed and float- 
ing of six thousand. 

"Pueblo San Jose, situated about five miles from the 
southern extremity of the bay of San Francisco in the 
mouth of the beautiful valley of San Jose, is one of the 
most flourishing inland towns in California. On my first 
visit it was mainly a collection of adobe houses, with tents 



130 RETROSPECTION 

and a few clapboard dwellings, of the season's growth, 
scattered over a square half-mile. 

"A view of Stockton was something to be remembered. 
There, in the heart of California, where the last winter 
stood a solitary rancho in the midst of tule marshes, I 
found a canvas town of a thousand inhabitants, and a port 
with twenty-five vessels at anchor. The mingled noises of 
labor around, the click of hammers and the grating of 
saws, the shouts of mule drivers, the jingling of spurs, 
the jar and jostle of wares in the tents, almost cheated me 
into the belief that it was some old commercial mart fa- 
miliar with such sounds for years past. Four months 
only had sufficed to make the place what it was; and in that 
time a wholesale firm established there, one out of a dozen, 
had done business to the amount of $100,000. In the early 
morning the elk might be seen in bands of forty or fifty, 
grazing on the edge of the marshes, where they were some- 
times lassoed by the native vaqueros and taken into Stock- 
ton." 

At Sacramento "The forest of masts along the embar- 
cadero more than rivalled the splendid growth of the soil. 
Boughs and spars were mingled together in striking con- 
trast; the cables were fastened to the trunks and sinewy 
roots of the trees; sign-boards and figure-heads were set 
up on shore, facing the levee, and galleys and deck-cabins 
were turned out to grass, leased as shops, or occupied as 
dwellings. The aspect of the place on landing was de- 
cidedly more novel and picturesque than that of any other 
town in the country. The original forest-trees, standing 
in all parts of the town, give it a very picturesque appear- 
ance. Many cf the streets are lined with oaks and syca- 
mores six feet in diameter and spreading ample boughs 
on every side. The city was peopled principally by New- 
Yorkers, Jerseymen, and people from the western states. 
The road to Sutter's fort, the main streets and the levee 
fronting on the embarcadero, were constantly thronged 
with the teams of emigrants coming in from the moun- 






AN ARTLESS ADVENTURER 131 

tains. Such worn, weather-beaten individuals I never be- 
fore imagined. Their tents were pitched by hundreds 
in the thickets around the town, where they rested a few 
days before starting to winter in the mines or elsewhere. 
At times the levee was filled throughout its whole length 
by their teams, three or four yoke of oxen to every wagon. 
The amount of gambling in Sacramento city was very 
great, and the enticement of music was employed even to 
a greater extent than in San Francisco. The horse-market 
was one of the principal sights in the place, and as pic- 
turesque a thing as could be seen anywhere. The trees 
were here thicker and of larger growth than in other parts 
of the city; the market-ground in the middle of the street 
was shaded by an immense evergreen oak, and surrounded 
by tents of blue and white canvas. One side was flanked 
by a livery-stable — an open frame of poles, roofed with 
dry tule, in which stood a few shivering mules and raw- 
boned horses, while the stacks of hay and wheat straw on 
the open lots in the vicinity offered feed to the buyers of 
animals at the rate of $3 daily for each head. When the 
market was in full blast the scene it presented was gro- 
tesque enough. There were no regulations other than the 
fancy of those who had animals to sell ; every man was his 
own auctioneer and showed off the points of his horses or 
mules. The ground was usually occupied by several per- 
sons at once." 

Witnessing the San Francisco December fire from the bay 
he says, "I went on deck in the misty daybreak to take a 
parting look at the town and its amphitheatric hills. As 
I turned my face shoreward a little spark appeared through 
the fog. Suddenly it shot up into a spiry flame, and at 
the same instant I heard the sound of gongs, bells, and 
trumpets, and the shouting of human voices. The calam- 
ity, predicted and dreaded so long in advance that men 
ceased to think of it, had come at last. San Francisco was 
on fire! The blaze increased with fearful rapidity. In 
fifteen minutes it had risen into a broad, flickering column, 



132 RETROSPECTION 

making all the shore the misty air and the water ruddy 
as with another sunrise. The sides of new frame houses 
scattered through the town, tents high up on the hills, 
and the hulls and listless sails of vessels in the bay gleamed 
and sparkled in the thick atmosphere. Meanwhile the 
roar and tumult swelled, and above the clang of gongs and 
the cries of the populace I could hear the crackling of 
blazing timbers and the smothered sound of falling roofs. 
I climbed into the rigging and watched the progress of the 
conflagration. As the flames leaped upon a new dwelling 
there was a sudden whirl of their waving volumes, an em- 
bracing of the frail walls in their relentless clasp, and a 
second afterwards from roof and rafter and foundation- 
beam shot upward a jet of fire, steady and intense at first, but 
surging off into spiral folds and streamers as the timbers 
parted and fell. For more than an hour, while we were 
tacking in the channel between Yerba Buena island and the 
anchorage, there was no apparent check to the flames. Be- 
fore passing Fort Montgomery, however, we heard several 
explosions in quick succession, and conjectured that vigor- 
ous measures had been taken to prevent further destruc- 
tion. When at last with a fair breeze and bright sky we 
were dashing past the rock of Alcatraz, the red column 
had sunk away to a smouldering blaze, and nothing but a 
heavy canopy of smoke remained to tell the extent of the 
conflagration. ' ' 

It was a community of young men; women, children 
and old men together being less than ten per cent, of the 
population. Of females in the cities the proportion was 
less than eight per cent, and in the mines less than two per 
cent. 

Not every nation would have been as free with its five 
hundred miles of rich placer mines, as to invite all the 
world to come and help themselves. True it had come 
easy and might go without conditions. To conquer terms 
from Mexico had not been a difficult task, and to pay a 



AN ARTLESS ADVENTURER 133 

pour-boire of fifteen millions for what was worth fifteen 
thousand millions, and all so soon following the Louisiana 
bargain, — buying it or stealing it at that rate per thousand 
leagues was a get-rich-quick achievement concerning which 
we could well afford to be liberal. 

What a possible Utopia was here if only man had been 
free from his own inventions! Managed as a thrifty New 
Englander manages his farm here was sufficient to feed 
and clothe the world forever, or at least until standing 
room should become scarce. Here was opportunity in its 
broadest conception. A practical Eden had humanity 
been ready for it, a substantial Eden with reasonable 
possibilities superior indeed to the fantastical garden and 
its occupants on the Tigris and Euphrates. But men are 
little more capable of exercising wisdom in their affairs 
now than in the days of Adam and Lot. 

There was no good reason why all foreigners should 
not have been taxed who came to gather gold, no good 
reason why an export duty should not have been placed 
on gold, or a fifth taken by the government as in the flush 
times of Spanish America, no good reason why after killing 
the Indians and taking their lands we should invite the 
scum of the world to come and occupy them, no reason why 
we should then turn over the government to these ignorant 
aliens, who knew not our pilgrim fathers nor yet the fourth 
of July except as a day to get drunk in. True, we could 
get rick quicker by filling up the waste places of the Re- 
public with any kind of rubbish, and we did get rich quick, 
six of us at least, who represent the six great interests, oil, 
steel, telephones, railroads, banks, and robbery pure and 
simple. But how about the ninety and nine millions who 
get none of these good things? 

England kept order in her Cariboo mines and made the 
interlopers pay for it. Murderers were caught and 
promptly hanged, and no harangue of the well-paid lawyer 
or mumbled excuse from be-wigged and be-gowned high- 
priests of law might ever avail to set him free. In the 



134 RETROSPECTION 

Sierra foothills also there was an absence of technicalities, 
justice was free and hanging easy. 

Next to the Anglo-Americans who though out-num- 
bered were still dominant, were the Spanish- Americans ; 
then the self-complacent Briton, the reflective German, the 
versatile Latin. From Africa, besides the orthodox man- 
eater was the swarthy Moor and sombre Abyssinian. From 
Asia, Australia, and the South sea isles, the turbaned In- 
dian, the Mongol, the Malay, the Chinaman, the man of 
Nippon, the Kanaka, and the rest. As compared with 
the class the Teuton peoples here presented, the restless 
Celt and the Latin representatives appeared to less ad- 
vantage for building a high-class commonwealth, while 
least desirable of all the Europeans was the slothful 
Slav. 

In 1853 business opened with a rush, only to collapse 
the following year from over-trading and over-building. 
Placer mining had also reached its culminating point, and 
those driven in consequence to agriculture and stock-rais- 
ing had as yet only begun. Mason, Persifer Smith, and 
Riley each in turn had been appointed governor, but they 
were only military men and did little governing. Over 
the mind of General Persifer Smith came a dim conscious- 
ness of the fitness of things when he wrote the secretary of 
war, "I am partly inclined to think it would be right for 
me to prevent foreigners from taking the gold unless they 
intend to become citizens." And again, "I shall consider 
every one not a citizen of the United States who enters on 
public land and digs for gold as a trespasser." But the 
preemption and other loose or liberal ways of administra- 
tion had become so interwoven in the politics of the nation 
as to prevent decisive action under these new conditions, 
and the matter was allowed to lapse. 

We must not credit ourselves with pure benevolence 
and good will to man as the whole reason for giving away 
our gold. The yellow metal attracted people, many of 
whom remained from choice while others could not get 



AN ARTLESS ADVENTURER 135 

away, and so became settlers; not to mention further the 
thousands of millions in agricultural products taken from 
the soil coming from the Louisiana purchase and the Cali- 
fornia country; and not to mention, finally, the coal and 
iron, the silver and copper, or the gold previously taken. 
Within the last ten years alone the gold product of the 
United States was some eight hundred millions of dollars, 
most of it taken from regions west of the Rocky mountains. 
So around the entire seaboard of the Pacific lies uncovered 
natural wealth such as never yet has been revealed to the 
avaricious eyes of man. 

I have said that no young man ever left home for the 
California mines and reached San Francisco the same per- 
son. If therefore the transformation on the voyage was 
so great, how much greater was that which followed. 

Latent in every individual are traits and characteristics 
the existence of which are unknown to the possessor until 
brought to light by circumstances. 

The new and varied experiences of the outward journey 
could not account altogether for the sudden transforma- 
tion attending the arrival. In the new environment new 
issues arose which must be determined on the spot, and the 
trend of such determination marked the man, marked his 
inherited qualities, and the effect on them of the new con- 
ditions. Actual or fancied necessity might drive the mis- 
sionary to dealing monte, or the college professor to cook- 
ing in a restaurant, while the old identity of thousands of 
educated and refined men was quickly lost in the rusty 
habiliments of the unkempt miner. 

Old habits, old beliefs, old principles fell from the 
hitherto pattern of propriety like a garment on touching 
the wharf at San Francisco, their naked souls to be garbed 
anew in the unaccustomed activities of the town or the 
coarse uniform of the Foothills. 

Not only were these men thus so strangely and unex- 
pectedly thrown together in a new atmosphere of human 



136 RETROSPECTION 

intercourse destined to work out for themselves a new 
system of salvation, but new systems of government of 
business, of society, and morals, with the crude amenities 
of a new manhood. 

The change was sudden and decisive. The sometime 
lazy person was seized with energy, the prudent became 
reckless as he laid his money on the gambling table, or en- 
gaged in wild commercial speculation. Faiths and doc- 
trines, the result of a lifetime of pious instruction and 
training, were often laid aside to be taken up at some future 
time in a more congenial atmosphere. The complex con- 
dition of life in the mines turned out many a strange 
creature, a wonder most of all to himself. 

All sense of moral or social obligation was too often 
atrophied by selfish interests, and yet there pervaded the 
entire community a wonderful kindness of heart and good- 
fellowship, with instances of self-denial and devotion ris- 
ing into the heroic. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE PASSING OP THE FRONTIERS 

THE American frontier, which for two and a half 
centuries entered so largely into the destinies of the 
nation, began its course at tidewater on the shore of the 
Atlantic. At first a thin line along the seaboard which 
marked the limit of European occupation, it slowly fell 
back ten miles, a hundred miles, a thousand miles, until 
two hundred years and more had passed away, when at 
the call of gold representatives from all the world congre- 
gated on the shores of the Pacific, only to see another 
frontier arise before them, destined to move slowly east- 
ward to a meeting at the continental divide, both frontiers 
there to vanish as phantoms of departed peoples. 

When the Puritans from Holland landed at Plymouth 
they landed on the frontier, the ever-moving line which 
marked the separation of civilization from savagism. Over 
this line were for the newcomers romance heightened by 
peril, the gathering of wealth with adventure; on the 
hither side was the work accomplished, wild lands subdued 
and farms and settlements secured. 

There at the initial line of these frontiers the Puritans 
on landing set up for themselves for defense only a platform 
on a hill with mounted guns, but sufficiently significant of 
coming conquest and subjugation. Pestilence among the 
natives won for the settlers a quiet winter, thus giving time 
for some slight preparation for the long forthcoming 
struggle for the supremacy. 

For a time the frontier hovered about the Appalachian 
range, then swept westward over the valley of the Ohio, 
resting again at the Mississippi. 

137 



138 RETROSPECTION 

In preparing the primitive lands for the use of civili- 
zation, before the forests are leveled or the prairies plowed, 
the country must be cleared to some extent of its former 
occupants, the aboriginal owners of the domain. 

Conscience the pilgrims had brought with them in 
liberal supply, and of an accommodating sort, applicable 
alike for expelling unorthodox believers or slaying savages. 
It was not difficult for them to persuade themselves that 
heathen nations have no rights before Christians, that 
savages have no rights in the presence of civilization, that 
is to say if Christians and their civilization happen to be 
the stronger. 

They would not shock the ears of a sensitive world by 
proclaiming aloud the rectitude of power, but they acted 
out the principle, all the same, as fully as ever did Caesar 
or Napoleon. Preachers in the pulpit preached it from 
holy writ; judges wove it into their most righteous de- 
cisions. 

Thus it was, that while our pilgrims were not at heart 
more wicked than Turks nor more cruel than Spaniards, 
never was the treatment of Turk or Spaniard more fatal 
to a conquered people than was our treatment of the 
Indians. 

William Penn was a just and upright man. At least 
he thought himself such, which is half the battle; others 
thought him so, which went far toward making up the 
other half. When he set out to people his state, he did 
not go to the ghettos of London and St. Petersburg, nor 
visit the purlieus of Naples and Vienna, but he printed 
pamphlets and gave them to his Quaker friends in Eng- 
land and the Lutherans in Germany. 

He promised that with free lands the incomers should 
be allowed free religion, both of which they knew how to 
value and to use. Thus his lands became occupied by the 
best and not by the worst element of Europe. 

Penn possessed a conscience, a seventeenth century con- 
science. Charles II had no conscience whether of time or 



THE PASSING OP THE FRONTIERS 139 

place. A seventeenth century conscience demanded pay- 
ment for Indian lands, but the amount need not be large 
nor the value excessive. Payment once made, minor cheat- 
ings were in order. 

The attitude of Penn in his dealings for his domain 
with the natives has been regarded as a model of fairness. 
Doubtless this is true from the viewpoint of that day, 
however illogical his position may seem to us. We may 
not speak of the rights of savages who have not the power 
to maintain them. We may not speak too freely of the 
rights of might or of the might of right. 

William Penn, who earnestly desired to do right, may 
not question too closely the actual ownership of this land. 

It is not the province of history to cavil at the decrees 
of fate. We may recognize inexorable necessity when we 
meet it. We may know how certain eventualities stand, 
how they have been and are likely to be, though we are 
unable to weigh or measure them, or tell why they are so. 
What seems to us wrong in the abstract, may when inter- 
woven in the scheme of the universe be right; we do not 
know; we do not like to think of so superb a structure 
as the American federation standing on a rotten founda- 
tion. 

We see the titles to all civilized lands running back to 
their acquisition by bloodshed and fraud; ownerships 
changing on the approach of superior strength; various 
names being given to various sorts of robbery, as right of 
conquest, right of discovery, the word right here not sig- 
nifying so much that which is just and proper as that 
which is strong. What is right? The dictionary makes 
sad work of it trying to tell. 

To whom does this land belong, to the king of England 
or to the aboriginal occupants? Scarcely would William 
Penn reply, "To whomsoever possesses the power to hold 
it. ' ' Yet such is the reply of history, or civilization. And 
Penn himself acts half way upon that theory. As a mat- 
ter of fact he buys from both the native owner and the 



140 RETROSPECTION 

European possessor, but gives an equivalent in value to 
neither. 

Civilization is stronger than savagism in every way, 
intellectually, physically, and experimentally; hence the 
simple savage, this child of nature, inured only to nature's 
frowns, must go by the board. Such is the rule. Penn 
did not stop to consider the logical bearing of his acts so 
long as they were humane. The king of England was 
willing to rid himself of a debt which he never expected 
to pay by giving up what had cost him nothing and did not 
belong to him. But with the royal title to the lands of 
Pennsylvania in his pocket, the Quaker was at peace, al- 
though he knew that title to be spurious. The rightful 
owners were in possession, rightful if strong enough to 
maintain their rights. 

Still breathing peace, Penn appeared without weapons 
before the weaponless natives, and promises were made 
which were kept on both sides for sixty years. Then the 
old Adam appeared in the congregation of the Friends. 
Penn knew that he was not paying the Indians a fair price 
for their land, but he did not resort to the gross trickery 
of the time. He at least pretended that the price was fair, 
and the measurement likewise. 

It was the custom among those Indians, according to 
the long-familiar story, to define lengths and breadths of 
lands by the distance a man ordinarily walked in a day. 
The length of Penn's tract was three days' walk. Penn 
himself walked a day and a half, not too slowly, and stopped, 
tired out, leaving the remaining distance to be walked at 
another time. After Penn's death the wisdom of the ser- 
pent creeping into the camp of the Friends, an expert was 
brought forward to finish the walking. He covered eighty- 
six miles, or about four days' walk, in the given day and 
a half, and died. Thereupon peace took to itself wings; 
the white and red brothers, Quaker and savage, returned 
to the ultimate appeal, and bloodshed followed. 

In the heart of Friend William was no guile. If he 



THE PASSING OF THE FRONTIERS 141 

had cheated the Indians it was not as he would have it. 
Perhaps he was the misused one; perhaps in exchanging 
trinkets for square leagues the Indians had got the better 
of him. Glass beads are valuable and highly prized by- 
great chiefs, as valuable and highly prized as diamonds by 
him who knows not the difference. A beautiful bright 
bead ; is it not worth more than acres of land % And surely 
it is not as wicked to cheat the Indians over-walking as by 
under-paying. But Friend William's friends, those who 
succeeded him in his noble efforts to establish a common- 
wealth on the broad principles of truth, honor, and in- 
tegrity, of peace and good will to men, they knew they 
were cheating, and they were made to suffer for it. 

But the ways of Penn himself were ways of pleasant- 
ness, and his paths were of peace, to such a degree at all 
events as should enable him to secure the most and best 
land for the least money, and establish a permanent com- 
monwealth on the broad principles of liberty and humanity, 
such as to emphasize an achievement without a parallel 
in the history of the race. 

Lands in limitless regions which had cost them nothing 
were cheap enough favors even for European monarchs 
to bestow liberally upon their subjects. Under whatsoever 
name sovereignty was claimed, whether by right of dis- 
covery as it was called, or by right of conquest, or by pur- 
chase from some power which had fairly or fraudulently 
acquired it made no difference. Possession was the point, 
and the power to hold possession. In any event, to the last 
purchaser the continent came cheap enough, even though 
the seller could give but a poor title. 

After all has been said it is plain that the acquisition 
of title, the claims to ownership of lands aboriginal or 
ancient must not be tested too closely by any code of ethics, 
other than the ethics of superior strength, if we would 
not have brought home to us the fact that every foot of 
this earth has been many times stolen from its possessors. 



142 RETROSPECTION 

The irony of it all comes upon us when we consider 
how quickly following the teachings of our good Puritan 
parents came the national promulgation of the doctrine of 
the rights of all men to life, liberty, property, and the 
rest. Before the white man came the red man was in 
possession, whereupon the white man's pursuit of happi- 
ness was in clearing the land of the red man, and the red 
man's pursuit of happiness was in killing the white man. 
Europeans did not take the trouble to bring forward that 
stale absurdity, the right of conquest; of course lands, 
especially savage lands, belonged to any one strong enough 
to capture and hold them. 

Then came a new pursuit of happiness, voiced by de- 
lectable debaters at Washington, more especially concern- 
ing the church of England people in the lands of Mary, 
and Caroline, and George, and Elizabeth, the happy pur- 
suit of holding black Africans in slavery, and fighting over 
the consequences one of the saddest and bloodiest civil 
wars in history. 

As regards the relative cruelty of nations or peoples in 
their treatment of the Indians there was less difference 
than is generally admitted. It was more a matter of 
human interests than of human kindness. The intentions 
of the Spanish government and of the American govern- 
ment were alike kind and just. Spaniards killed the 
Indians when they would not submit, especially when they 
would not accept the Spaniard's religion. 

As I have said, in the eyes of Christianity heathenism 
had no rights; in the eyes of civilization savagism had no 
rights. Wild lands when wanted by civilization had only 
to be taken, and wild men like wild beasts must give way 
before the stronger arm. They had souls, yes, convoked 
wisdom had so decided, but the swarthy natives of America 
were not human as the white Europeans were human. If 
surely they had souls they were heathen souls, unregener- 
ate, unredeemed. 



THE PASSING OF THE FRONTIERS 143 

The people of the United States were more pronounced 
in their treatment of the natives than the Spaniards at the 
south or the Scotchmen in the north, not because the Puri- 
tans of New England and the planters of Virginia and 
their successors were by nature more inhuman, but be- 
cause the Indians were not wanted. Their presence was 
a menace and a nuisance. 

The Americans from first to last would have the coun- 
try clear of them, New Englanders preferring to do their 
own work, while the southerners found African slave labor 
more adaptable. The Spaniards in the meantime found 
the natives profitable for the purposes of conversion, of 
amalgamation, and of labor, while the Scotch and English 
in Canada wished to hold the country as long as possible 
in a wild state, with the savages to hunt for them. "The 
Hudson Bay company," its officers used to say, "thanks 
no one, least of all its servants, for cheating or mistreat- 
ing the Indians," while Queen Isabella, on hearing of the 
cruelties of one of her captains, exclaimed, "How dare he 
so treat my subjects!" 

While the people of the states, south and north, were 
as rapidly as possible clearing the country of its aboriginal 
population as they cleared it of its wild beasts, by killing 
them, burning their towns, and driving them farther back 
into the wilderness, the government, that abstract irre- 
sponsible thing at Washington where its thieving agents 
are concerned, was fathering and flattering these children 
of nature, herding them in reservations and giving them 
for their comfort ■ trinkets, blankets, missionaries, surrep- 
titious whiskey, and the white man's diseases. 

But if we are to carry upon our shoulders this sin of 
our fathers to the third or fourth generation, and for many 
more, we may take this for our consolation, that it is fate 
under whose inexorable decree we suffer, that the mere 
contact with civilization is too often fatal to the Indian, 
that along the lower levels of savagism kindness kills as 
surely if not as quickly as cruelty, if indeed the rifle is 



144: RETROSPECTION 

not more merciful than measles, small-pox, syphilis, tu- 
berculosis, and the rest. The English in Australia have 
no interest in clearing the bush of its occupants, but it is 
all the same, contact kills. 

Nor were the white man's ethics of occupation much 
more logical than his ethics of extirpation. The world 
was made for man, that is to say for civilized man. Naked 
wild men and wild beasts must not occupy land wanted 
by mounted men in clothes, that is if the latter are strong 
enough to take it. True, all were once savage, or sylvan, 
but then the fittest survived, you know. Well might the 
Indian say to the white man, "Take our land if you must, 
kill us if you enjoy slaughter, but spare us your cant, 
hypocrisy, and lies." 

It is idle to talk of the rights of civilization. Civili- 
zation has no rights not held in common with savagism. 
Let us rather be honest with ourselves and others, and say 
openly to the natives, "You have that which we want and 
are going to take; be quiet and submissive and we will 
give you something; make us trouble and we will kill you." 
For this civilization has itself proclaimed, if not in words 
at least in deeds. 

And this our colonists thought at first to do respectably, 
to remove the natives and lift the frontier without re- 
sorting to the usual barbarities of frontier warfare, as 
scalping and torturing their captives; but after the lesson 
taught by Braddock's defeat they were obliged to some 
extent to let their Indian allies have their way. 

There was no thought thus far on .the part of white 
men of conquering the Plains. They had enough nearer 
home to conquer, in the valley of the Ohio and on the hither 
side of the Mississippi. Yet the passing of the frontiers 
was assured from the beginning. Judging from the na- 
ture and condition of the native occupants when first 
seen by stronger peoples they were created only to be 
destroyed. At all events they were created and they were 
destroyed. This destruction was accelerated by the pass- 



THE PASSING OF THE FRONTIERS 145 

ing of the frontiers; indeed, the passing of the frontiers 
was their destruction. 

It was a simple but effectual process. The colonists 
on the Atlantic began at once to shove back the dividing 
wall, but it was some time before they had it placed well 
out of the way lined along the crest of the Rocky moun- 
tains. The gold-hunters on the Pacific, with scarcely any 
opposition, quickly found the country clear back to the 
Sierra Nevada. They and the settlers who came after 
them could have had the intervening desert space at any 
moment, had they so desired it, but they deemed it not 
worth the taking. 

The closing lines of the unwritten past, the dissolu- 
tion of a world of non-progressive humanity risen — who 
shall say how or when ? — back in the twilight of primordial 
ages, came softly and simply as destiny had decreed. 

The dominant race walked into its questionable inheri- 
tance as by divine right. They walked about over it as 
fur-hunters; they marched through it as emigrants; they 
digged for metal as miners; the fertile patches they culti- 
vated as agriculturalists. Finally, becoming tired of the 
long journey round it by way of Nicaragua, of Panama, of 
Cape Horn, they laid lines of railway across it, factories 
and cities arose and the achievement was complete. 

Thus the fateful day arrived when the inevitable must 
come to pass. It was during the civil war and the recon- 
struction period following it that marked the disappear- 
ance of the American frontiers. 

Early came into American life, to life on the Atlantic 
seaboard, this western frontier, the ever-shifting barrier 
between matter of fact and mystery. Two centuries later 
appeared to those on the Pacific coast their eastern fron- 
tier, less now a mystery than a matter of fact, something 
to be met and overcome. For though here and there the 
silence of nature had been broken, the miracle of turning 
oceans of sand into fructifying soil had not yet been 
revealed. 



146 RETROSPECTION 

Meeting thus upon the mountain-top the two frontiers 
vanished. Throughout the century each change in attitude 
or progress of these frontiers, their uprising, their every 
movement, and their passing had marked an era in the 
nation's history. In front of each, and between them, was 
nature undisturbed, a wilderness tenanted only by denizens 
of the wilderness. Now all around was subjugation, nature 
enslaved; in place of rude wilderness, the calm of culture 
and the reign of mind, specimens of superiority sufficient 
for themselves at least to justify the dominant race in its 
spoliations. Overspreading the republic was a oneness, 
which however thin the coating, helped to unite the diverse 
interests. 

On the eastern side transportation became a vital force. 
Wagon roads and canals were quickly followed by steam 
navigation on rivers and lakes, and lines of railways work- 
ing ever westward and stretching finally across the conti- 
nent. On the western side similar energies were in opera- 
tion, all working eastward; and in the meeting of the two 
sides was sent forth the last sigh of savagism. 

Our two neighbors at the north and in the south, each 
exercised its own peculiar and individual influence. The 
great trails of pioneer times, and later the trunk lines of 
railways in Canada ran east and west, while those of Mexico 
came to us out of the south, as the Santa Fe trail, and the 
Mexican National and Mexican Central railways. Our 
own roads extend east and west. 

The significance in the character and direction of the 
pathways of the three nations was felt and recognized from 
the first. Our attitude toward Canada has been reserved, 
our intercourse all along the line has been limited, our 
interchangeable interests few. 

When Canada was held by people of the Latin race, 
it mingled freely with the aborigines. The adaptiveness of 
the Frenchman, his light, gay spirits captivated them, 
throwing the Anglo-Saxon into the shade. 

On the south was another family of Latin blood, who 



THE PASSING OF THE FRONTIERS 147 

although we did take from them California might entertain 
some gratitude for our help in defeating the plan of the 
French emperor to set up in Mexico an empire under Maxi- 
milian. 

We have seen how railways forced the barriers and 
dispelled the frontiers. They penetrated the prairies and 
punctured the desert. The seventies saw in operation the 
first trans-continental through line, the Union Pacific and 
Central Pacific being joined with imposing ceremony at 
Promontory, May 10, 1869. The event was celebrated in 
oil by Mr. Hill, the artist, at the instigation of Leland 
Stanford, who held the position in front with hammer 
and golden spike. Stanford took a great interest in the 
artist's work during its progress, coming often for pose 
and consultation as the life-size figures developed under 
the brush, it being understood that the honored president 
of the road was to take it, paying a fair price for it on its 
completion, and that others should have copies of it. But 
in the meantime the associate magnates had grown cold 
and jealous over the matter, feeling that Stanford, who in 
the construction of the road, and in aiding by his impos- 
ing presence the manipulation of contracts and securities, 
and the bridging of financial irregularities in the courts, 
had served as little more than figure-head, now assumed a 
prominence as builder to which he was not entitled. So 
in order to show indifference to fame, and smooth the 
ruffled plumage of the others, he repudiated his obligation 
to Mr. Hill, and left the huge painting, the work of several 
years, on the artist's hands. 

To forestall competition, the Central Pacific men out 
of their lootings built the Southern Pacific, and with the 
two, the roads to Oregon and elsewhere, their returns be- 
came larger than ever. The intention originally was not 
to operate the first road, but to get out of it as much as 
possible on the score of building, and then throw it with 
a huge indebtedness on to the hands of the government, 
they themselves standing from under. 



148 RETROSPECTION 

Then followed the organization of other roads, the At- 
lantic and Pacific, the Northern Pacific, the Denver and 
Rio Grande, and others. The failure of Thomas Scott, 
president of the Pennsylvania road, to build the Texas 
Pacific, chartered in 1871, from Texas to San Diego, rid 
the Southern Pacific of a serious competitor, and prevented 
San Diego from then becoming the metropolitan city of 
southern California. 



CHAPTER IX 

A NEW LAND AND A NEW PEOPLE 

THE courses of history are like the scattering of birds 
at the noise of the fowler, and the blending of 
races in the creation of new nations is as the coming 
together of flocks of a kind from different quarters to 
merge into a homogeneous whole. 

A new land makes a new people; various race combi- 
nations give sectional variety. A good food-producing 
soil in a warm or temperate climate gives the best ethnical 
results. This is the rule; that the conditions so favorable 
to development as those in Alta California, where the very 
atmosphere is a vitalizing force, should have engendered 
in all the ages past only the lowest order of humanity 
must be referred to intervening causes of which we can 
know nothing. 

With regard to the development of peoples already 
civilized, united under new conditions, it is different. In 
that case the adaptiveness of the several parts to their en- 
vironment becomes the chief factor in progress, for it is 
obviously impossible wholly to fit old ways to new con- 
ditions. 

The problem was never more distinctively presented 
than when, at the call of gold, a new people first came to- 
gether in a new land on the shores of the Pacific. And 
when they came did they enter in and possess the land, or 
did the land close in and possess them? 

For there were few among those who came early to 
America whose minds had not dwelt to a greater or less 
extent upon the new nations which should be made to fit 
C 149 



150 ' RETROSPECTION 

the new lands that had been discovered; or should we say 
the new nation, for it was scarcely to be expected that 
more than one would appear, or more than one form of 
government be devised of such superior excellence as to 
throw into the shade every other people and government 
of whatsoever time or place. That people, of course, were 
our people, and that government our government, and in 
the new found lands we should assist at the birth as well 
as at the coming of age, and we should be the envy of some 
and the pattern of others, and gather to ourselves glory 
and reward. 

So ran visions through the mind of many who made 
their abode in Philadelphia or Boston, in New Netherlands 
or Virginia; and when with much thought and vigorous 
action under the clear sky and in the pellucid air of a new 
environment such men as Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin 
Franklin, and George "Washington began to appear, it 
seemed indeed that a new and better age had come upon 
the world. 

And this new land and this new government, God-given 
to his best people, to a later chosen Israel, should be de- 
voted in his name to the betterment of his world, of his 
wicked world shall we say, at least of all the people in it 
of whatsoever country, color, or creed. 

But with distinctions of course. Nearest us, directly 
under our noses in fact, and with none too fragrant an 
odor, were the aborigines of the two Americas, having 
mind and heart and soul like our own, likewise Gocl-given 
with the new lands, and to be properly accounted for in 
the final reckoning. 

We made them to appear as bad as possible, with our 
broadest vulgarity giving them beastly names, as buck, 
squaw, papoose, their success in battle a massacre, ours a 
glorious victory, yet they were not worse than others. We 
made treaties and broke them at our pleasure, and placed 
over them as superintendents broken down politicians who 
cheated them in many ways. 



A NEW LAND AND A NEW PEOPLE 151 

It is a pity ; they are so far astray ; they surely are not 
worth reclaiming. They will not work, and is it not written 
that such shall not eat? It is cheaper to kill the Indians 
and enslave the Africans. Are not they also cursed of the 
Almighty, these black men ; is it not written of the children 
of Ham that they shall serve? 

Two of the assumed obligations, the red and the black, 
being thus summarily disposed of to the satisfaction of the 
Puritan conscience, the remainder, the yellow and the 
white, should receive their due consideration at the proper 
time. 

These early comers from Holland and England were 
different from the others, and the commonwealth of which 
they began the construction must be different. They were 
something more than religious fanatics seeking a Utopia 
in the wilderness. There was the pride of life as well as 
the purity of faith. It was only excess of zeal that caused 
them to err as others had erred in relation to them. They 
had given freedom to their bodies but their souls they 
could not so easily emancipate. 

That there were present many strong men of tender 
conscience and high sense of moral obligation did not pre^ 
vent the indulgence of iniquitous superstitions character- 
istic of the age. 

Americans all, but of different stock, brought from the 
colonial coast to assimilate in the hills. Daniel Boone's 
adventurers in Kentucky were of one stock; the strapping 
corn-fed fellows of Tennessee were of another stock; and 
when cities arose yet other strains were found there. And 
in the race development which followed, this system in 
western migrations was not without its compensation. 

Kindred in birth and breeding yet of different families, 
forming new communities in new lands; inherited faiths 
and forms of thought meeting other inherited faiths and 
prejudices; new arrivals being met by new economic con- 
ditions and new social and religious ideals, toleration be- 



152 RETROSPECTION 

came a necessity, and the several members of these so- 
cieties learned in time to give and take the best and 
eliminate the less desirable. 

Thus were brought face to face the New Englander and 
the Virginian, the New York Dutchman and the Pennsyl- 
vania German, and the many mixtures in the south, every 
family having its history, which with early environment 
and characteristic differences might, if known, explain as 
well the race antagonisms as the tolerance and kindly feel- 
ing attending the creation of new communities. 

Crossing the Mississippi and still moving westward yet 
other types appeared. At every halting place the problem 
had to be wrought out anew. Finally these restless builders 
of empire, overleaping plains, mountains, and deserts, met 
and mingled, these many types with many other types on 
the California shores of the Pacific. All along the route 
they left their impress on the soil, the impress of mind 
and manners, of speech and numberless idiosyncrasies 
brought with them from their late American or European 
homes, they or their children, then or later, destined to 
be again disrupted and recast perhaps in broader forms 
with fresh infiltrations from every quarter of the globe. 
For thus America was made, the American people, a dis- 
tillation from one alembic of all the nations. 

The economic forces gathered from every quarter of 
the earth and planted on new and fertile soil in their 
coalescence produced remarkable effects. Opportunities 
were eagerly seized and followed up with an intensity 
never before displayed on such a scale or with similar re- 
sults. 

The colonists, even those who founded the federation, 
were not of one class alone, and their subsequent sur- 
roundings and occupations caused them to drift still 
farther apart. The proprietary governments in Mary- 
land and Virginia were composed of men of aristocratic 
tendencies, loyal to the king and to the church of England, 
who had left their country for political reasons. 



A NEW LAND AND A NEW PEOPLE 153 

The refugees who landed at Plymouth rock had fled 
from religious persecution; they held with Cromwell, and 
to their own forms of worship, and were essentially demo- 
cratic. They cleared the country as rapidly as possible of 
wild beasts and wild men, with their own hands scraping 
off the snow from the ground in the winter, cutting out 
the underbrush in summer, and building and planting as 
best they were able. 

The southern planter lived in regal state with servants 
and equipages, cultivating with slaves the tobacco plant 
which passed as money. The impecunious whites of the 
south were proportionately abased, while in the north all 
being poor all were equal, all worked and work was hon- 
orable. 

It was perhaps fortunate that the French in Canada 
had refused to join the revolutionary movement while it 
was fermenting in the British colonies, and so saved the 
United States from an unprofitable alien element. 

The Quakers in Pennsylvania formed a class by them- 
selves; they might not fight, nor cheat, nor swear, nor en- 
slave, they might work and live simply and friendlily. 

At the same time the century belonged to the English; 
the Atlantic colonies were English, the states when organ- 
ized were essentially Anglo-Saxon, and though immigra- 
tion and increase were more alien than English, yet 
Anglo-American customs, laws, and literature have thus far 
predominated. How long this state of things will continue, 
with ten millions of citizen negroes rapidly increasing 
toward a hundred millions, and a million a year of low-grade 
European immigrants soon to be citizen aliens, who can tell ? 

For two centuries New England stock maintained its 
purity to a fair degree; after that it strayed away and 
mixed with baser blood, while those who remained at home 
deteriorated, partly from stagnation and partly from amal- 
gamation with a low European element which drifted in 
from Halifax and New York. 

The United States at the end of the eighteenth century 



154 RETROSPECTION 

was quite a different nation from the United States at the 
end of the nineteenth century. And never before in our 
complex life were there such radical and rapid changes as 
we are undergoing at the present moment. 

The entire population for that matter is of foreign 
origin, but Ave are at liberty to distinguish between the 
early English and Dutch stock, the founders of the Re- 
public, who endured revolution and achieved independence, 
and under the inspirations of freedom of thought and 
action have made this country what it is, — we are at liberty 
to distinguish between the descendants of these, whether 
living at present east or west, but who may still be seen 
as in their original American homes, the Virginia gentle- 
men, the solid men of Boston, and the money rulers of 
New York, Celtic, Teutonic, Slav, — and the Latin inter- 
mixtures who came in for adoption afterward, however 
worthy and loyal they may prove to be. 

These later arrivals, numbering twenty to thirty millions, 
exercised their due influence on the mass of which they 
formed part of the amalgam, being the lower strata of so- 
ciety, poor, ignorant, many of them debased, while the early 
arrivals were of the middle class of a people foremost in 
individualism, of independent thought and high aspira- 
tions. 

We have pretty well drained northern Europe, but 
we have still Austria, Italy, and Russia to draw from. 
With these we may still swell the slums of our large cities, 
breed more American citizens who cannot speak the Eng- 
lish language, and extend the usefulness of our sentimental 
shimmers, howsoever little agriculture and manufactures 
are benefited by them. 

"New varieties of the American" Bayard Taylor called 
the long loosely jointed specimens that came aboard his 
steamer at New Orleans while en route for California in 
1849. They presented the appearance of what might have 
been a cross between poor white trash and the impecunious 
owner of a few worthless slaves. And if slave labor was 



A NEW LAND AND A NEW PEOPLE 155 

degrading in Virginia it was more so in Tennessee and 
Missouri, where society was yet crude and the conditions 
of domestic life were less refined. 

Quite a contrast between these mid-continent men 
and the rather diminutive inhabitants of some of the more 
refined eastern states. 

Race intermixtures in a warm and fertile soil evolved 
in the southern middle-west a crop of young giants revel- 
ing in "hog and hominy," driving negro slaves and help- 
ing to propagate them. "Pike county" was the generic 
term applied to them in the California mines, where they 
were a distinct type. Awkward in their movements, with 
their massive bony frame, large hands and feet, sallow 
melancholy unintellectual faces, fateful eyes and the cor- 
ners of the mouth drawn downward, they were quite a 
contrast to the New England Yankee, yet of good use 
enough in empire-building. 

These however are not fair specimens of the product of 
this section. Though the Puritan race in New England is 
diminishing, in the mid-continent and Pacific states it is 
increasing, though not as rapidly as the general increase 
of population. 

Thus it is plainly to be seen that these United States 
are no longer the America of England and Holland, of 
the Puritans and pilgrims, of Hancock and Washington 
and Jefferson. We have sold ourselves for a mess of pot- 
tage, for inordinate wealth, which we have secured, and 
which is even now taking revenge on us by breeding rot- 
tenness in our bones. 

So rapid are the transformations through which we 
have passed and are still passing that every two or three 
decades seem to bring us out into another world. To 
realize this more clearly, eliminate from the mind for a 
moment the new forces that revolutionized society dur- 
ing the first half of the last century, the application of 
steam and electricity, resulting in the steamboat, rail- 



156 RETROSPECTION 

road, and telegraph; and during the last half, the funda- 
mental forces of steel and oil, with numberless new in- 
ventions and discoveries, evolving such miracles as the 
floating palaces of ocean, battleships and liners, wireless 
telegraphy, the telephone, the automobile, and the flying 
ships. And the romance of wealth; a million a hundred 
years ago was more than a hundred millions now. 

And rapid as have been these economic evolutions, 
territorial expansion has ever been in advance of them. 
The original area along the Atlantic was doubled twice 
over, and its utilization multiplied tenfold. And over 
the wilderness of the west, metamorphosed, the valleys 
became gardens, the grassy plains cornfields, the metal- 
liferous mountains pasture lands, the vast deserts fruit- 
ful fields, the forests and the gold-veined sierra deposit 
tories of inexhaustible wealth, and on the parched slopes 
of sunny California homes of paradise, while spread out 
on either side were the world's two greatest oceans, with 
their watery pathways direct to the seaports of all nations. 

These marvelous developments came not in a steady 
stream, but in surges, each movement marking an epoch. 
And ever as long as time rolls, and men continue to come 
and go on this planet, these ceaseless transformations will 
continue, to the affiliation and elevation of mankind. And 
ever the momentous question will be, what next? To the 
prophet who can rede this riddle belongs the future. 

The population of the colonies in 1750 was estimated at 
one million. The first census of the United States in 1790 
showed a population of 3,929,214 of whom 700,000 were 
negro slaves, 60,000 free negroes and 80,000 Indians. 
John Carroll of Carrollton, with an income of £14,000 
a year, was regarded as the wealthiest man of his time, 
and George Washington with less than 75,000 acres of land 
stood next. Then there was Gouverneur Morris of Morris- 
ania, who could order from London at one time a whole 
box of richly bound books without stopping to count the cost. 

The disintegration attending the distention of a com- 



A NEW LAND AND A NEW PEOPLE 157 

munity over a wide area of wilderness was met by new 
concentrations under new environments, by which knead- 
ing process the whole mass was undergoing continual 
change. Not only is this formative process always pres- 
ent, but the results are something new, better or worse 
than the old it may be, but always different; so that in 
the earlier migrations when single individuals or some 
part of a sectional community from the Atlantic seaboard 
had reached the Pacific they might not always be easily 
recognizable. 

In the final overspreading with settlements of the en- 
tire country from ocean to ocean it was found that each 
centre of population held its type, which was the germ 
of development in each of the new settlements, new Mend- 
ings ever productive of new results. Thus among the 
original coast colonies there were the several societies 
widely distinct in form, feature, thought, and speech, and 
whose character was influenced also by their religion. 

Cutting up our country into geographical provinces, 
each with its own peculiar physical conditions differing 
from those of every other, we find in each the meeting of 
many types whose intermingling and new environment 
developed new types. Hence as a nation, whatever we 
may become ethically or politically, we can never physi- 
cally coalesce into a homogeneous whole. The New Eng- 
lander will always be a Yankee; the black man of the 
southern plantations will always be black. The Russian 
Jew of the northern sweatshops will always be a Russian 
Jew; while the Virginian gentleman so long as he remains 
at home will be a gentleman, however much of a bully 
he may perhaps become in transplanting. 

It explains much and exonerates much as to the conduct 
of southerners during their migratory days, the fact that 
in their own country, from the earliest times, affairs of 
personal honor were settled out of court ; the law was asked 
to intervene in property rights only. 



158 RETROSPECTION 

Wherever the Virginian went he carried with him the 
chivalrous ways and courteous manner, until peradven- 
ture he dropped them on the road, yet always impressing 
upon the language of the west his charming accent. His 
influence for good and evil was later felt in a marked 
degree in California. Quite different, though none the 
less impressive, were the characteristics of the New Eng- 
lander, with his chronic directness, his persistent applica- 
tion, and his thrifty ways. 

Any point in the progress of this nation, if we allow 
the mind to dwell upon it, may appear to us as a special 
period of transition; but so impetuous has been the rush 
forward that during the last half century at least any 
special periods of progress are scarcely discernible. 

Americanized by California gold, by the passing of the 
frontiers, by war and railroad and government graft, by 
the greed of special interests, it is no longer America for 
the Americans, but America for the Irish, for the African, 
for the Nipponese. 

The light-hearted French and Italians love pleasure, 
which their Teutonic mixture, however it may modify 
makes more durable. San Francisco is shaping her course 
and evolving her people to make her the gayest city in 
America. The city and its environs invite to open air, 
which the Latin race loves. 

Portland, Oregon, presents a fine class of business men, 
merchants, and bankers. The real agricultural people of 
Oregon also are rather superior, made up of American, 
rather than a conglomeration of Latin, Teuton, and Nip- 
pon. The early settlers of Oregon were nearer the New 
England type than the early settlers of California. They 
w T ere likewise pioneers in the true sense of the word, men 
and women who went before to remove obstacles and pre- 
pare the way for others, a class of people that never ap- 
peared in California at any time. 

Oregon to-day is more American than any state west 
of the Mississippi, one half of the original population be- 



A NEW LAND AND A NEW PEOPLE 159 

ing from the middle west, though formerly of the eastern 
seaboard, one third from the southern west, and although 
six per cent, only came direct from New England they 
were sufficiently pronounced in character and intelligence 
to implant their institutions on the virgin soil of this 
farthest west. A few Canadian fur-hunters dropped down 
from British Columbia, while Germany and England con- 
tributed the rest. 

Seattle with its more modern development has ac- 
complished wonders, with its transpacific and Alaska 
trade, its flourishing manufactures, owing to its self-de- 
liverance from the tyranny of labor leaders, for which su- 
perb achievement we must overlook the fungus growth 
of a politician sent to Washington for its sins, to be white- 
washed at public expense to the discomfiture of Congress 
and the undignified display of presidential prejudice and 
sentimentalism. 

San Diego is a pronounced example of civic individual- 
ism as displayed in the Anglo-American occupation of the 
Pacific coast. The first point in Alta California for the 
planting of a Franciscan mission, it was also the site of 
the first Mexican town, and one of the first to accept United 
States ownership. It was perhaps as interesting a place 
as any visited by Mr. Dana during his interesting voyage, 
though consisting commercially only of hides and tallow, and 
ethnically of Indians, Mexicans, and a white man or two. 

It remained much the same, with the addition of a 
few more white men and an imitation Mexican pueblo 
government, until some time in the sixties, when there 
came along a man with Yankee proclivities and mid-conti- 
nent manners, who bought all the pueblo land thereabout 
for thirty cents an acre, selling it up to a thousand dol- 
lars a lot and dying without a dollar he could rightly call 
his own. Father Horton, he was called, founder of the 
Horton addition to the new town addition to the old town, 
which last addition bloomed effulgently before them all. 

Four miles south on the bay the Kimball brothers be- 



160 RETROSPECTION 

came possessors of a Mexican grant, on the edge of which 
they laid out a town, calling it National city. The two 
brothers possessed one common characteristic which made 
it unnecessary for any one to inquire who they were or 
whence they came; each could out-talk any one except his 
brother. 

The deck of the steamer which plied between the ports 
of San Diego and San Francisco was the favorite debat- 
ing ground for these champions of the rival cities. Mr. 
Horton himself was facile of speech, and allowed the same 
liberal margin for exaggeration for himself that he granted 
to the brothers Kimball ; hence on these memorable voyages 
the winds and the waves had little chance of being heard. 

As the Horton eloquence took effect, and the hamlet 
began to grow, Los Angeles became alarmed, fearing a 
rivalry detrimental to her interests. Every fact or falsity 
that could be employed, every subterfuge that could be in- 
vented, the most outlandish and bitter lies were brought 
forward to cast odium on San Diego and prevent people 
from going there. The coast was not clear, they said, 
the harbor was not safe, a vessel was just wrecked on 
the rocks, a boat was capsized and all on board were 
drowned, the bay was full of sharks, the land was barren, 
nothing doing, nothing ever would be done. Don't go 
there. 

Then came along the Southern Pacific, passing San 
Diego by for some wicked offending, and so the embryo 
city rested from its labors for many days. 

Meanwhile Los Angeles was reveling in a triumph of 
misrepresentation and vituperation. And made it profit- 
able. Dishonesty was the best policy. How they feel 
about it now is difficult to say, as most of those particular 
liars are dead. 

On the streets of San Francisco among scattering At- 
lantic Americans we see many persons of Teutonic caste, 
but there is no predominating type. Business men of the 
first rank are mostly Americans from the eastern states, 



A NEW LAND AND A NEW PEOPLE 161 

while the lower class of politicians are of alien origin. 
The Oregonian lacks the full face and form of the Cali- 
fornian, has a more refined expression though somewhat 
awkward in bearing, — but on the whole more American 
than Californian, owing to pure origin, isolation and re- 
tirement, and less alien intermixtures, particularly of the 
lower sort. 

The early Anglo-Calif ornian was known as such the 
world over; large, alert, frank, good-natured features, but 
easily hardening under pressure; manners and dress alike 
worn loosely ; a real or affected indifference in handling 
money, of which he would spend lavishly up to the last 
dollar. 

We have seen how like the shadow of a cloud, under 
the sombre influences of our worshipful pilgrim fathers 
and their successors, the American frontier had slowly 
crept westward from the Atlantic, leaving uncovered the 
wealth of industry, cities towns and factories, smiling 
fields and happy homes. We have seen how for half a cen- 
tury this frontier exercised a magical influence on Ameri- 
can thought and action, ever serving as a dividing line 
between reality and romance. 

Then presently out of the west came another frontier, 
approaching more rapidly, and meeting the first century 
after Independence at the great continental divide. Be- 
tween these two frontiers had long remained a vast area 
of mountain plain and desert, the Netherland of American 
development, the last of United States territory to be 
reclaimed from savagism. By it the two sides of the na- 
tion were held apart, until there had developed on the Pa- 
cific side a new type, but with essentially the same interests 
and ideals, the farthest west being now more eastern than 
the eastern west. 

All through the period of greatest expansion in the 
region between the settled communities of the Atlantic 
seaboard and the ever elusive frontier, social disorganiza- 



162 RETROSPECTION 

tion prevailed. It was not until two hundred years after 
they had been claimed and bought and sold in Europe, 
that the lands now constituting the larger part of the 
United States, fell under the influence of civilization, and 
it was not until after 1846 that the region beyond the 
Mississippi came to any great extent into American life. 
Then the industrial energy of the east swept over the west, 
and the work of empire building began anew. 

Up to this time the population of the United States 
was practically American ; that is to say, foreigners hitherto 
had come in so slowly, and were of such a quality as to 
become assimilated with no serious race deterioration. 

Never was displayed a deeper love of country, never 
was shown greater devotion by both men and women, a 
willingness to give all they had and life itself for the ac- 
complishment of their purpose than by people of both 
the north and the south during the civil war. As in the 
early days of Rome, citizenship was a precious thing; 
to be one with the Republic was a sacred privilege. 

Fifty years ago the average American was patriotic. 
There is no average American now, and he is not patriotic. 
Faith in the future is not patriotism, it is not even religion 
when unattended by any formative effort. 

During the war with its brutalizing influence this 
passionate idealization of nationality declined to a sullen 
hatred of the enemy, and disgust over the growing cupidity 
and selfishness manifest on all sides. In like emergency 
some of the old feeling might return, but with the large 
addition of low-grade foreigners the old patriotism will 
scarcely be revived, for from that day to this we have been 
constantly assimilating the nationalities of Europe and 
absorbing them in our body politic, each draft being from 
a yet lower depth until the lowest has long since been 
reached, and still we draw. 

This policy grew with the growth of the country; 
wealth and power must increase with the increase of 
population. This was true up to a certain point, which 






A NEW LAND AND A NEW PEOPLE 163 

point we seem to have attained, for increase of wealth and 
numbers no longer add to our well-being. 

While the extent of our riches and resources was 
questioned, we asserted and insisted ; travelling, we bragged 
up to the limit through every capital in Europe. Now 
that wealth and power and greatness stand undisputed, 
we no longer boast. 

During the three decades from 1870 to 1900 there was 
added to the agricultural domain of the United States an 
area equal to the half of Europe, and every new tract 
wrested from savagism and thrown open to occupation 
was followed by a mad rush of mixed aliens and Ameri- 
cans, all eager for spoils. 

It was not avaricious speculators alone who fancied 
they saw in present development a permanent prosperity, 
but astute statesmen encouraged increase of numbers as 
enlargement of national advantages. The disorder spread 
southward and broke out in virulent form in Georgia, 
where a league was formed to aid in the begetting of chil- 
dren. Never was set going a foolishness so absurd, whether 
in the natural or the supernatural line, but that it found 
followers. What sayeth the preacher who thus preaches 
propagation with so loud a voice, patting the woolly head 
of a shambling negro and presenting him with a douceur 
Because his wife gave to American citizenship four at a 
litter ? Does he not say quantity before quality ; anything 
of any shape, or color, or degree of intelligence may qualify 
as a member of this very free republic ? 

And as for bringing into the world innocents, not know- 
ing or caring if any provision has been made for their 
upbringing, not knowing or caring if they are cursed from 
the beginning with the poverty and diseases of their par- 
ents, cannot any one see the crime of it? 

Of the behavior of men, civilized or half civilized, 
when thrown together in a new land without a govern- 
ment we have a fair example in early California, a new 



164 RETROSPECTION 

land, not yet cleared of its low-grade root-and-grass- 
liopper eating humanity, yet the mildest mannered of 
American savages. 

In the ethnic evolution of Anglo-California the in- 
gredients of population were essentially mixed, and a re- 
construction of ideals must necessarily follow the coming 
together of many different peoples strangers to each other 
in a strange land. In the mines was one new phase of 
social development, and in the cities another. 

Among those that came were some from every nation 
under heaven, from all parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, 
America, and the islands of the sea. From the northern 
and middle United States came the greatest number, these 
to this day are the dominant element on the Pacific coast. 
Next were the people of the southern states, then Spanish 
Americans, Irish, Germans, Italians, French, and English; 
Scotch and Scandinavians, East Indians, Poles, and Rus- 
sians ; Arabs and Portuguese, Kanakas, South Sea islanders, 
and Australians; Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. 

There were more negroes at first than later; they were 
not wanted here at any time, being lazy, lying, inefficient, 
and variable. Oregon passed a law at an early date that 
even free negroes should not be allowed to live within the 
limits of the territory. 

Professor Farrabee says that a perfect human develop- 
ment in the United States has been arrested, if not ruined, 
by the admission and absorption of low grade Europeans; 
that the people are suffering from the unfit and degener- 
ate, both native and foreign born, but that the error may 
yet be rectified. "We have had an unexampled oppor- 
tunity," the learned professor goes on to say, "to produce 
a perfect race of men and women. If we had been more 
careful as to the immigrants we admitted we could have 
insured an addition of nearly perfect people. Those im- 
migrants of a couple of generations ago who were not fully 
fit have left a progeny of still less fit persons." 

That is to say, though the third generation is worse 



A NEW LAND AND A NEW PEOPLE 165 

than the second we may recover and become as the first 
if we do not further debase our blood. If the professor 
will consider for a moment he will see that this can never 
be. Race perfection is not a goal to be reached by human 
effort; race betterment, an eternal improvement, is all 
that we can accomplish, and whatever is lost cannot be 
regained. Further, the low alien element abroad will 
never be excluded so long as the low alien element at home 
possesses the power to admit them. 

No doubt the United States will in due time settle upon 
some kind of race, notwithstanding present ethnic dis- 
abilities, but it is scarcely to be expected that with two- 
thirds of the population the scum of Europe, with probable 
future African and Asiatic intermixtures, the race will be 
equal to what it would have been had it remained largely 
Anglo-Saxon with only the best Teutonic affiliations. 

Though the substance has departed, we still apply the 
word American to the shadow, but only as a generic term. 
The Georgia piccaninny, or the New York son of a Russian 
Jew and Italian mother are no more Americans than if 
born in an African jungle or a St. Petersburg ghetto, 
though for our sins made politically our equal. 

As for line development in our new lands on the Pa- 
cific there were half a hundred types, or rather one might 
say every man was his own type, thought his own thoughts, 
spoke his own words, acted upon his own instincts, follow- 
ing his own inclinations, fearless of God or the devil, or 
of any other influence above or below save that mightiest 
of all powers the opinion of his fellow-men. 

The kind or quality of this opinion, so ardently desired, 
so imperiously demanded marked the man, determined 
his status in the scale of humanity, and gave him his place 
among his fellows. No questions need be asked him as to 
who or what he was ; his name and birthplace were matters 
of indifference. How he wished himself to be regarded 
by others; that was the man. And that is the man and 
the woman, here and elsewhere, to this day. 



166 RETROSPECTION 

The typical hero of current tales of the Sierra foothills 
was the creation of a morbid fancy having little founda- 
tion in fact. False impressions were early abroad as to 
the character and quality of the men searching for gold 
during the flush times of California, owing to a disposition 
on the part of early romancers to caricature them. The 
author of this Retrospection spent some time in both the 
northern and southern mines, as well as in the cities. Al- 
though too inexperienced to make much of a study of the 
people, he was present at an impressionable age, and many 
of the striking and ever- varying scenes of those days re- 
main as vivid in his mind to-day as they were sixty years 
ago. Though there was present enough of crude origi- 
nality to justify some of the story teller's flights of fancy, 
the quality of humanity as presented by them never ex- 
isted. 

The California miner of '49 and '50 was a plain, prac- 
tical man, of good common-sense, honest and industrious. 
It was a long and expensive journey to these mines, and 
the wholly worthless fellow seldom found his way thither. 
Yet he is presented to us as a new type, unique and pro- 
nounced, not in process of transformation but finished. 
Were it true, such an appearing could have been only as 
the result of a miracle, for in the autumn and winter of 
1849 the mines were practically abandoned, owing to the 
heavy rains which flooded the valleys and impeded trans- 
portation. 

There were deviations, of course, so different had been 
the origin and development even from the same or contigu- 
ous quarters in the United States, — we had not yet become 
accustomed to speak of California as in the United States. 

Take, for example, the individual and type christened 
in the mines "Pike County," before mentioned, from 
Pike county, Missouri, whence the earliest specimens came, 
though the name was applied to all of that quality, whether 
from Missouri, Tennessee, or Kentucky. 

What prolific qaulities of earth and air may here be 



A NEW LAND AND A NEW PEOPLE 167 

found for breeding big brawny men of sluggish brain and 
strong sinews has never been explained, but the fact re- 
mains that in the California specimens, seven feet high 
with breadth and weight in proportion were not uncom- 
mon. 

Compare the tales of the romancers with the reports of 
Governor Riley to the secretary of war, August 30th, 1849. 
"Before leaving Monterey," he writes, "I heard numer- 
ous rumors of irregularities and crimes among those work- 
ing in the placers; but on visiting the mining regions, I 
was agreeably surprised to learn everything was quite the 
reverse from what had been represented, and that order 
and regularity were preserved throughout the entire extent 
of the mineral district. In each little settlement, or tented 
town, the miners have elected their alcaldes and constables, 
whose judicial decisions and efficient acts are sustained 
by the people, and enforced with much regularity and 
energy." And of San Francisco, Albert Williams remarks, 
"Valuable property exposed in frail structures or lying 
unprotected on the street was undisturbed. It was 
dangerous, it was also accounted mean to steal." 

The typical American miner presented a fair physique, 
above medium height, clean of limb, with an honest eye 
and decided opinions. He had common education, based 
upon good principles, and thought well of himself, with 
a conscience pliable enough to suit his purposes, yet with 
little disposition to downright wrong doing. 

Religious scruples brought from home melted under 
the compelling sun of his new environment. He was the 
best specimen of manhood ever seen in these parts, far 
better than can be found in proportionate numbers in 
California to-day. He was fearless and independent, with 
a pride above pride of dress; indifferent as to conven- 
tions, yet considerate of the rights and feelings of others. 
At bay he would do a wickedness quicker than a meanness. 

There were present professional gamblers, quiet and 
well-behaved, reticent always but especially so while en- 



168 RETROSPECTION 

gaged at their occupation; not disposed to quarrel, not 
quick to shoot. The barkeeper conducted himself along 
similar lines; any other course was bad business. 

As a rule the miners at large were temperate and 
frugal; loosed from all restraint they let themselves go 
upon occasions, certain of the riotous sort in dancing, 
drinking, shooting, with now and then a hanging meeting, 
or a Sunday raid on a Chinese camp or an Indian 
rancheria. 

It is remarkable how quickly outward bearing fitted 
itself to new conditions, how quickly the economics of the 
mines evolved a new and unique order of society which 
led to such erroneous estimates of individual character. 

Those men down among the boulders, who and what 
are they? Mostly of the middle class, I should say, were 
there any middle class in America, the middle class being 
the best class, — well born, being American born, of re- 
spectable antecedents, educated, brought up to work, and 
neither rich nor poor. 

University men, not a few of them, club men some of 
them, though club men were not so common nor so shiftless 
then as now, embryonic lawyer, doctor, clergyman, though 
the young parson usually preferred dealing monte to 
digging for gold. And that slightly built, pale, boyish 
looking young fellow, quiet features, cadaverous skin, and 
mild eyes, but with a glint of steel in them — I have seen 
him more than once; no one knew until the thing was 
tried, he least of all suspecting it, until accident brought 
it home to him, the lust for blood, for human butchery, 
harbored in his heart, in the heart the kindest and best of 
mothers gave him. 

What folly to talk! As well attempt to analyze the 
never existent angels as to sound the depths of human 
nature. 

The Englishman in the mines was staid and sober; he 
soon tired of the occupation and dropped out of line. So 
with the volatile Franchman, who fraternized and worked 



A NEW LAND AND A NEW PEOPLE 169 

in companies. There were Mexicans, Kanakas, and some 
of every people under the sun, and of all grades of dirt 
and disposition. 

Some there were who had broken away from early as- 
sociations and habits to experiment in unknown fields 
under unimaginable conditions. They were of strong 
individualism with self-centred natures. Here were dis- 
played forces generated in distant homes and liberated in 
a community unrestrained by law or social convention. 

The spirit of these gold-devouring days was the spirit 
of individualized absolutism. Each was for himself and 
no other. He carried his life in his pocket, his hip pocket 
as he fancied; to those about him his life was of no con- 
sequence; if he lost it that was his affair. Touch his 
property, his comrades were quite ready to help 
hang the thief, as in the sacredness of property rights 
all had a common interest. There was nothing sacred in 
human life, all must die sooner or later; a little time more 
or less made no difference. Entertaining such sentiments, 
the greatest of crimes being theft, the least of crimes 
murder, gold became king and ruled royally. On the hut 
floor or cabin shelf were loose nuggets and tin cans of 
gold-dust, unguarded alike, whether the owner was off 
at work during the day or carousing at night, none dare 
touch it. Few desired to touch it; it was better to go out 
among the boulders and gather it. 

Besides, during the first year of the Inferno, which for 
the first year was not an inferno, but simply a gathering 
of neighbors and friends, all was quiet, a summery picnic, 
sleeping in the chaparral, eating meat and gathering gold ; 
the advent of crime was during the second year of this 
new civilization. 

If life was of little consequence, the veneer of life was 
still less regarded. The first look of the initiated at a 
new-comer was to penetrate appearances; color, creed, 
clothes, all on the instant became transparent as the 
qualities of the man were laid bare for inspection. If 



170 RETROSPECTION 

he took kindly to the use of his stove-pipe hat for a foot- 
ball, and his baptism in bad whiskey, that were a good be- 
ginning, but there must be present honesty as well as 
amiability to make a good devil. It was a bad place for 
the vendor of hypocrisy and fraud. 

A prominent feature of the flush times was the swift 
succession of Btartling events, making a day seem like a 
year and a year a life-time. Up and down, rich to-day 
and poor to-morrow, alive to-day and dead to-morrow ; 
here a town at midnight, in the morning ashes; a fine farm 
yesterday, now a flood ; a start for home — ah ! what thrills 
of delight ! thrust back among the boulders by the failure of 
a bank; news from loved ones, oh hell! disease and death. 

In the colonization of the earth the several European 
nationalities were distinctly marked one from another, 
while in each nationality the members were much alike. 
Thus in New England one person or town or city would be 
similar to all other New England persons or towns or 
cities. So with regard to the Quakers and Germans of 
Pennsylvania, the Dutch of New York, the English of 
Virginia and the Carolinas, while each colony differed 
from all the others, the members of each w r ere all like one 
another. 

So with mid-continent occupation; while the migra- 
tions to the Ohio and Mississippi valleys brought with them 
the individualisms of their several Atlantic homes, amal- 
gamations set in and soon the many several settlements 
were to a certain extent one people. 

In the settlement of the Pacific coast it was quite dif- 
ferent. However diverse may have been the component 
parts the towns and cities assumed an individualism which 
they retain to this day. 

The Hispano- Calif ornian element, like the Indian, soon 
faded into nothingness, leaving no mark. The early north 
Atlantic people assumed the supremacy, and still main- 
tain it, while from the south Atlantic and the middle 



A NEW LAND AND A NEW PEOPLE 171 

west, and from all the foreign world were aliens without 
number, peoples with many various ideals destined here 
to enforced assimilation. 

Those who came gold-hunting to California were not 
pioneers in the ordinary sense of the word, as I have said. 
They did not come to explore, or to remove obstacles, or 
to prepare the way for others, like the first settlers in the 
valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi. 

There were never any pioneers, properly so called, to 
California, though there is a pioneer society in San Fran- 
cisco, the distinguishing characteristic of whose members 
is not merit, achievement, or intellect, but simply existence, 
— they or their progenitors came to California before a 
certain date, if as horse-thieves the membership require- 
ment would be met all the same. 

The gold-seekers came for gold and nothing else, and 
their time having expired they took their departure leav- 
ing no mark. Agriculture and commerce came later, when 
the pioneering had all been done, not by pioneers, but by 
trappers, miners, and adventurers. 

The men whom fate flung into the Foothills in 1849, 
what did they? They dag a hole and left it there. Their 
achievement was a hole; they did not even stop to fill it 
up when they hurried away to make another hole else- 
where. Such was pioneering on this gold-bitten coast, 
achieving holes in the Sierra or saloons in the city. 

Upon the change of government from Mexican to 
American, political relations remained undisturbed. Cali- 
fornians of the Latin race at first fell gracefully into 
place, accepting as truth and sincerity whatever the agents 
of Uncle Sam chose to tell them. At the convention to 
form a constitution Sepulvecla, Bandini, Alvarado, and 
others spoke eloquently and to the point, gaining the re- 
spect and good will of their coadjutors. But when they 
found the words of the Yankee hollow, and their promises 
vain, their indignation was aroused; they felt themselves 
betrayed, as indeed many of them were. 



CHAPTER X 

THE MILLS OF THE GODS 

WHEN the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed 
in that suburb of Mexico city on the 2d of 
February, 1848, the first knowledge of which reached 
California the following August, there stood upon the 
border of the little cove on the inner side of the peninsula 
forming San Francisco bay, and opposite Verba Buena 
island, a hamlet of 850 people living in 200 houses, built 
some of them of adobe, a few at the base of Telegraph hill 
and scattered up Clay and Sacramento streets being of 
cloth. 

The inhabitants were a mixture of Mexicans, Californi- 
ans, Americans, and a few aliens who had been living 
there under military rule since 1847, at which time 
Washington A. Bartlett was made alcalde, to be succeeded 
by Bryant, Hyde, and Leavenworth. 

It was a community of men mostly, men of a somewhat 
restless disposition and speculative turn of mind, yet with 
sufficient staying qualities to remain in place when properly 
anchored amidst suitable surroundings. There were the 
mission of Dolores well away on one side and the presidio 
of San Francisco off on the other, each attending to its 
own affairs, which were the affairs of heaven and of the 
Mexican republic, the saving with remnants of mission 
property the few remaining souls of a castaway humanity. 

Open portal from the great Pacific to these realms was 
the Golden Gate, so called and so mapped long before Kit 
Carson had shown Benton's son-in-law the way to Cali- 
fornia, or Sutter had paddled his boat up the Sacramento, 
or Marshall had seen the color of gold in the tail-race. 

172 



THE MILLS OF THE GODS 173 

Away back in 1835, long enough ago when considered 
in relation to the awakening of these shores, the English- 
man Richardson had moved over from Sausalito, and clear- 
ing away the chaparral and yerba buena, or sweet smelling 
herb, which gave its name to the little cove where it grew, 
had set up a trading-tent, as a place better suited to his 
hide and tallow business and more accessible to his female 
customers from the ranchos south and across the Bay. 

The next inhabitant was an American, Jacob P. Leese, 
who came up the following year from Los Angeles, and 
with his friends, William Hinckley and Nathan Spear from 
Monterey, put up a substantial frame building, in which 
they conducted their business. Others came straggling 
along, the Hudson Bay company establishing a branch 
there in 1841. 

Now and then a famous navigator like Vancouver 
Kotzebue or La Perouse, Roquefeuil or Beechey would 
anchor before the Cove, and landing pay his compliments 
to the sleepy village. Then after visiting the Mission 
and Presidio, perhaps, or mounting a bronco and rolling 
off sailor fashion in a ride to San Jose, calling in on the 
patriarchal rancheros, they would finally take their depar- 
ture amidst many cheap compliments, of which the Cali- 
fornians kept always on hand a good supply. 

Thus the embryo metropolis .of the Pacific was set upon 
its feet and given a push into the future, several pushes, 
in fact, and most remarkable ones. 

First, the name. General Vallejo in 1846 had given five 
square miles of land on the strait of Carquinez for the 
capital city of California, and promised to build the nec- 
essary legislative halls provided the seat of government 
should be placed there, and should bear the name of his 
wife Francisca. It was, and is, in every respect the most 
suitable spot around the Bay for an imperial city, and 
none better in all the world, and it was making rapid 
progress in that direction when Alcalde Bartlett and 



174 RETROSPECTION 

Colonel Folsom, the latter United States quartermaster, 
put their heads together and contrived a little Yankee 
trick, which decided the destinies of the two cities forever, 
and filled the Hispano-Californians with disgust. 

This was no less than to change the name of Yerba 
Buena to San Francisco, which was done, and the place 
pointed out to arriving vessels as the city of the Bay. 
Further still, our Seraphic Father, pleased by the compli- 
ment, and willing to ignore the mercenary part of it, sounded 
the call of gold throughout the world, and brought 
within the year to this his distant port a fleet of six hun- 
dred sail, crowded with adventurers hungry for the bait. 

All along the dreams of the sleepers at the Cove had 
been troubled with visions of the future, visions some of 
them too brilliant to be comfortable. 

Since the appearance on the coast of United States 
government officials, and the representatives of European 
powers, with the hide and tallow traders at the Cove, 
some thoughts of a future metropolis at this point had been 
entertained, though opinion was divided as to the relative 
importance of Yerba Buena, Monterey, and Francisca, the 
city of the strait. "It is a good country," they used to 
argue in their dreams, "better than the Mayflower people 
had, and a harbor far superior to that of which the New 
York Dutchmen boast. 

"Well, they were nothing once, had not even hides and 
tallow behind them, and that was only two hundred years 
ago; we should be as great as New York in two hundred 
years. Why not? We will sleep further on it." 

But the days of dreams and nights of sleep were over. 
Here was a consummation! Each day was two hundred 
years, each night a century. 

Every people must have a history, if only wherewith 
to embellish school-books. And every history must have 
in it some fighting and bloodshed, else it is unworthy to be 
regarded as history, though it might not improperly be 
called butchery. It is a little difficult however to make 



THE MILLS OF THE GODS 175 

anything heroic out of the deeds of the American fili- 
busters known as the Bear Flag party, or even of the doings 
of the military men in California at that time. 

James A. Forbes was British consul, and J. S. Moer- 
enhaut French consul. Thomas 0. Larkin's functions as 
United States consul at Monterey ceased, of course, with 
the treaty. 

It was the transition period from the old to the new, 
the years 1846 to 1848. Mission and military rule both 
must give way to a government by the people, at first a 
rabble, flotsam blown in from the ocean, with trappers 
percolating through the mountains to fill up afresh with 
whiskey and dance with the senoritas, in whose eyes a man 
with a white skin was as an angel from heaven. There was 
present no pretence of law except in the towns, where a 
sprinkling of Americans were already contending for 
office. 

Stockton, Kearny, and Fremont, after their several 
military and diplomatic antics with the generals and 
admirals of the army and navy, had taken their departure. 

Already in full swing were two newspapers, the Cali- 
fornian Star by Samuel Brannan, and the Californian 
brought up from Monterey by Robert Semple. Brannan 
had brought out in the ship Brooklyn the type and outfit 
of a Mormon paper, the Prophet, which he had previously 
published in New York. The two journals were after- 
ward united as the Star and Californian, but from the be- 
ginning of 1849 became known as the Alta California. 

In the east and north, beyond the line of missions ex- 
tending from San Diego to San Francisco bay, it was all 
open unclaimed country, save a few scattering settlers and 
the occupants of certain Mexican grants. 

Vallejo at Sonoma, Sutter at Sacramento, Doctor Marsh 
at Livermore, Gilroy on his rancho south of San Jose, 
Yount in Napa valley, Stone and Kelsey at Clear Lake, 
Sheldon on the Cosumnes, and Wolf skill at Putah creek, 
represented interior California at that day. 



176 RETROSPECTION 

The most important towns outside of San Francisco 
were the pueblos of San Jose and Los Angeles, where lots 
were sold at first as in San Francisco at twenty-five cents 
per front vara. In Napa valley a town site was laid out, 
and when two shacks were set up it was hailed in the Yerba 
Buena press as Napa city. 

Ignacio Pacheco ruled at San Rafael as juez de paz, 
followed later by Timothy Murphy as alcalde, the latter 
being also in charge of the ex-mission property. 

Water and vegetables were brought from Sausalito, 
where stood Reed's cabin, and, where whalers used to 
winter. Later a boat-tank was built and water piped into 
it and served on the hither side of the Bay from water- 
carts. 

A ludicrous feature in the municipal development of 
San Francisco was the early appearance of sectional 
rivalry, reminding one of chicks just out of the shell as- 
suming a belligerent attitude toward each other. 

The rival sections were only four blocks apart, one 
being at the foot of Clay street, one at the foot of Broad- 
way, and one at the foot of California street. 

The Jackson street lagoon at Montgomery street was 
filled up at public expense. At the foot of Clay street, 
which was in the centre of the Cove half a block from 
Montgomery street, was a little wooden wharf extending 
out into the shallow water. The foot of Broadway, near 
the base of Telegraph hill, extended below Battery, where 
the water was deeper, and where also a little wharf was 
constructed. California street at that time terminated 
at Sansome street, where also was the pretence of a wharf. 

The relative advantages were the central locality with 
a bad landing at Clay street, as against the better but more 
distant landings at California street and at Broadway. 
Later as the Cove was filled up, the Clay street wharf was 
extended to nearly half a mile from Montgomery street. 

Prominent in the Clay street faction were Nathan 



THE MILLS OF THE GODS 177 

Spear, William S. Hinckley, J. P. Leese, Jean Vioget, Melius 
and Howard, Ward and Smith, Cross and Hobson, and 
William G. Rae. Champions of Broadway landing were 
S. J. Hensley, J. K. Ackerman, DeWitt and Harrison, 
Peter Wimmer, Ira T. Steffins, B. R. Buckelew, and Jasper 
O'Farrell; while interested in California street were John 
R. Robbins, William Pettet, William Foster, Brannan, 
Larkin, Doctor Townsend, Clark, Hastings, and others. It 
will be noticed that these are nearly all English or Ameri- 
can names. 

Other rivalries were at hand, contentions among the 
alcaldes, two ayuntamientos, and duplicate maps on which 
names of the streets were in some instances changed. 
Later there were land-titles, the slavery question, the Chi- 
nese question, craft and graft; but we have sufficient to 
claim our present attention without referring to the more 
modern events. 

A survey was made by Vioget in 1839; Jasper O'Far- 
rell also made a survey and lots were placed on sale, 50 
varas at $12 and 100 varas at $25 each, after 1200 had 
been granted or sold for municipal expenses for the first 
three years. 

A map signed by Alcalde Bartlett calls Battery street 
Battery place; Sansome is Sloat street, Pacific is Bartlett 
street, Sacramento street is called Howard, and the names 
of Dupont and Stockton streets are reversed. Thus Du- 
pont street has had three namings, and worse might be 
done than to change it again. 

In a spasm of political enthusiasm incident to the re- 
turn of General Grant from his trip around the world, 
the flag of Admiral Dupont was hauled down and that 
of the later-made great man raised in its stead. 

In our latter-day rejoicing the names of two others of 
our immaculate mayors appealing to our gratitude sug- 
gest another change for this much named avenue of Du- 
pont and Grant. Consider how the patriotic hearts would 
swell within us as the car conductor called out "Eugene 



178 RETROSPECTION 

Schmitz street," or "P. H. McCarthy street," and how 
could we better honor lower Market street than by giving 
it the illustrious name of one who has loved it long and 
dearly, that we might ever hear amidst the rattle of the hoise- 
cars adorning it the reminiscent sound of "Patrick Cal- 
houn street." 

He who later was General Sherman was there but ob- 
tained no street. Nor did Clark Leidesdorff or Stevenson, 
Gillespie Ward or Halleck fare much better, some of them 
having only a back alley to do them honor. Hyde street 
might have been given a name of better repute; one whom 
everybody is trying to cheat is pretty sure to be trying to 
cheat everybody. 

There is no reason why the names of Montgomery, 
Kearny, Stockton, Grant, Fremont, or Folsom should have 
been given to the most prominent streets, none of these 
men ever having rendered important service or become 
identified in any way with the interests of the city or 
state, as was the case of Larkin, Sutter, Vallejo, Howard, 
Brannan, Broderick, and Leavenworth. Still less have 
we any cause to honor Polk, Fillmore, Gough, Steiner, or 
O'Farrell, and others similar both alien and American 
while Van Ness is scarcely the name to apply to the finest 
boulevard in the city. It is small honor for a great man 
but great honor for a small man thus to have his name 
given to a street. 

Pending a treaty of peace between Mexico and the 
United States, alcaldes who had been elected or appointed 
continued to administer justice according to their ideas of 
Mexican law and the old usages, appealing in difficult 
cases to the governor, whose policy it was to interfere as 
little as possible. 

Then began to appear something more imposing and 
effective in the form of special courts for special service 
organized under the fragmentary laws lying around, left 
over from alcalde's courts and military orders, as the ap- 



THE MILLS OF THE GODS 179 

pointing of Sutter and Vallejo to supervise in the trial of 
certain members of the Mormon battalion for x> a ssmg 
counterfeit gold coin, Stephen C. Foster and Abel Stearns 
acting as judges. 

So at Santa Barbara, Benjamin Foxen was tried before 
specially appointed judges for killing Augustin Davila 
whom he caught stealing his chickens near Santa Inez. 
The jury consisted of six Californians and six Americans, 
and the verdict was four years imprisonment. 

While confidential agent of the United States at Los 
Angeles, Abel Stearns was made sub-prefect, with Gallardo 
and Sepulveda as alcaldes. Later the city was under mili- 
tary rule, with Salazar and Avila as alcaldes. 

Such was the condition of affairs when the gold-seekers 
arrived, the dominant element among them being free white 
American citizens, as they sometimes styled themselves, 
flushed with a sense of their own importance, the impor- 
tance of this new acquisition of territory, and impressed 
most of all with the fact that here were bushels of gold to 
be picked up by those who should prove to be the best 
scramblers after it. 

We should not expect to find in such a class so con- 
ditioned any waste of patience over bars of justice which 
a strong arm might remove at pleasure, least of all the 
tolerance of the pettifogging system so common in courts 
of law throughout Christendom. The temper of the town 
quickly changed. The alcaldes ceased their bickerings, 
the Mormons their street preachings, and the chronic 
loafers were galvanized into some show of activity. 

The reign of justice was early inaugurated by men who 
later became prominent as good citizens. Although ar- 
rivals by land and by water up to the autumn of 1849 wen 1 
constant, yet for a time in midsummer there was an air 
of quiet about the place while the people were away at the 
mines. Portsmouth square, or the Plaza, was the civic 
centre, where were enacted the dramas of the day, tragic 
and comic. 



180 RETROSPECTION 

On Sunday, the 15th of July, of this memorable year, 
a singular spectacle presented itself upon the streets. Up 
to this time little thought had been given to crimes or 
criminals, as there were present, none to speak of, either 
in the cities or in the mines. Good men, for the most part, 
had come from neighboring places to gather gold, not to 
prey upon each other. They had no desire to steal. But 
from some Australian vessels which had arrived of late 
had crept in criminals from the penal settlements of Great 
Britain, notably from Sydney, who were just now be- 
ginning to make their presence felt in San Francisco. 

This Sunday had been appointed by the wicked ones 
for the opening of their carnival of crime. The Hounds 
they at first called themselves, but upon reconsideration they 
fancied that Regulators sounded better ; their headquarters 
was a tent on Kearny street which they called Tammany 
hall. 

In fantastic array, with banners flying, and armed with 
clubs, knives, pistols, or whatever they could lay hands on 
as weapons of war, they sallied forth. Skirting the busi- 
ness quarter, then bounded by Kearny and Washington 
streets, they passed on by the Plaza and down Jackson to 
Montgomery street, and then to Telegraph hill, where was 
a suburb settlement of Chileans and Mexicans. Upon 
these, most of the men being absent, they charged right 
valiantly, putting the women and children to flight without 
the loss of a single man. 

Taking whatever they chose from the spoils of the 
conquered, and flushed with victory, they returned, march- 
ing through Montgomery street, and dropping in on their 
way at the stores, which were always open on Sunday, 
helped themselves to whatever they fancied with the curt 
explanation, "Charge it to Tammany hall." Thereupon 
they returned in triumph to headquarters. 

Instigated to this bold act by the air of quietude which 
pervaded the place on this peaceful Sabbath morning, 
the gentlemen from abroad soon learned that there were 



THE MILLS OF THE GODS 181 

still men enough at hand, and of the proper quality, to 
take care of themselves and of the town. 

Officially, California was as yet neither a territory nor 
a state, only a country stolen from Mexico and held by 
superior force, the light military rule being next to nothing, 
the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo still permitting the 
shadow of Mexican jurisprudence to hover over the primal 
region so newly gilded with gold. Hence there were pres- 
ent in the usual form neither law nor government; but 
there was justice, which is better than law or government 
when the law is used to defeat the efforts of justice and 
the government is administered by ignorant and unprin- 
cipled aliens for their own benefit. 

However this may be, early next morning Justice stood 
boldly forth at the street corner in young San Francisco ; 
and there came along Frank Turk, F. J. Lippitt, Hall Mc- 
Allister, grim old Horace Hawes, afterward author of the 
Consolidation act, which saved to the city so much money 
and law waste ; P. Barry, who sold the best of whiskey over 
the bar; Myron Norton, later one of San Francisco's best 
and purest judges, and Sam Brannan, ubiquitous Sam, still 
king of the Mormons, and not at all bashful. Sam could 
declaim equally well on . saints or sinners. These and 
others met, and talked, and went their way to meet again 
at noon. 

Law is a good thing when held in its proper place by 
justice ; so justice stood by and fully acquiesced, indulging 
itself in no tricks of law to overthrow the law, while 230 
men enrolled themselves as a police force, arrested nine- 
teen of the gay Regulators, including Roberts, leader of 
the gang, and confined them on board the United States 
ship General Warren, then lying at anchor in the harbor. 

A grand jury was impaneled, indictments found, and 
trial held, justice still smiling on law, which was present 
mainly in theory. Among others there were Gillespie and 
Howard, Simmons and Spofford. William M. Qwin, later 



182 RETROSPECTION 

United States senator from California, and James C. Ward 
were chosen associate judges to assist T. M. Leavenworth, 
alcalde and shadow of the law. F. J. Lippitt, Hall Mc- 
Allister, Horace Hawes, and Frank Turk were appointed 
prosecuting attorneys, and P. Barry and Myron Norton 
assigned for the defence. A verdict of guilty was ren- 
dered by the jury, and the penalties of imprisonment for 
various terms pronounced. 

About the same time five mutineers who had attempted 
the life of an officer, were caught and tried, Commodore 
Jones and Hall McAllister officiating. As there was pres- 
ent no high court of interference to grant a new trial, on 
conviction they were punished, two shot and three im- 
prisoned, the affair being concluded within four days. 

Thus was lawfully executed justice without law, some- 
thing our latter-day jurists seem to find it difficult to 
arrive at. 

Other arrests were made with similar results, and the 
incident was closed — rather a tame affair as introductory 
to a reign of right, and one which even law could find 
little fault with. 

A beneficial influence on court proceedings as well as 
on society in general came with the arrival during the sum- 
mer of W. B. Almond, from Missouri, who was at once in- 
stalled judge of the First Instance, a court superior to 
that of the alcalde's. Judge Almond was a man of ability 
and honesty, and not afraid to act upon his convictions. 
Verbiage in court proceedings he detested, and an appeal 
to judicial inbecility in the way of hair-splitting was not 
allowed. 

To represent the law prior to admission as a state there 
was the military governor at Monterey, an alcalde or jus- 
tice of the peace at each of the towns, and an ayuntamiento 
or town council at the larger places. A dismantled brig, 
the Euphemia, lying in the Cove at Front street was pur- 
chased and used as a jail. 

The treaty with Mexico continued Mexican forms of 



THE MILLS OF THE GODS 183 

government in force when not in conflict with the constitu- 
tion of the United States. The law as administered by an 
alcalde's court, and the superior court of First Instance, 
were relics of old Mexican methods, which American law- 
yers and judges treated with little consideration, but took 
the law into their own hands and ruled in defiance of law 
as occasion required. 

In 1851 it was the counsel for the burglars only that 
spoke for law and order, but in 1856 lawyers, judges, 
murderers, thieves, ballot-box stuffers, newspaper men, 
gamblers, harlots, officials of all sorts and assassins of the 
Cora and Casey stripe, all cried lustily for the law to 
throw its aegis over them and protect them from just 
punishment for their sins. 

Please make a note of it, that since the quietus put upon 
public immorality by the uprising of 1851, yet to be de- 
scribed, the law had remained undemonstrative, and good 
order prevailed. But no sooner had law began to stir 
itself than evil doings appeared again, for law was the 
safest protection of crime ; Cora, Casey, and all the notori- 
ous criminals of the later time immediately on their arrest 
sought the jail, the judges, and the courts as a sanctuary, 
a harbor of rest where they knew themselves to be safe. 

Far be it from me to exalt the rule of lawless mobs, 
something San Francisco has never yet seen. I merely 
state the fact, and further remark that lawless mobs are 
not made of law abiding citizens. Before these self-asser- 
tive men evil doers slunk away. There were no more rob- 
beries or murders after the incipient attempt just men- 
tioned until the advent of law. No sooner had law become 
firmly established, with all its old-time forms and furbe- 
lows, than hydraheaded crime crept forth and smiled. 

"Hah! this is something like old times," said the men 
of Sydney ; and they of the fire-eating south responded 
"It is like old times/ ■ 

For a year after the Hounds episode, peace reigned in 
the effervescent hamlet, and strangers walked the dark 



184 RETROSPECTION 

streets unafraid. Then more English convicts came in 
from Sydney and began to fire the inflammable houses, 
and to steal, and to kill. Whereupon up rose the same 
level-minded citizens, still following forms of law but 
without seeking from New York or Missouri twist or tech- 
nicality which should free the scoundrels and enable them 
to burn what was left of the town, they straighway hanged 
some and sent the others back to their old Australia home. 

This ever-shifting society, however, was not sufficiently 
sterilized long to hold in check new forces for evil, whether 
in the form of estrays from the convict colonies of Eng- 
land, or deflections from the paths of rectitude in proxi- 
mate quarters. 

During the winter of 1849-50 heavy rains in the moun- 
tains and floods in the valleys drove the inhabitants to the 
towns, and before spring depredations were in full blast. 
Incendiary fires were frequent, and there were robberies 
or murders nearly every day. Six times within three years 
San Francisco, or the greater part of it, was burned, as 
we have seen. 

In the summer of 1851 crime broke out afresh, the 
source being further arrivals af aliens from every quarter. 
Here was the beginning on the Pacific of the bad policy 
of admitting every sort of humanity to the free participa- 
tion in all benefits of our commonwealth, of our land, our 
gold, our institutions, to the general demoralization of the 
people. 

Making their nest in a place called Sydney valley, they 
drank and slept by day, issuing forth at night to fire, pil- 
lage, and murder. They were probably not the vilest 
human element in the world, though their advent at this 
time was a curse and their presence a moral pestilence. 
As their numbers increased, the gang divided, some going 
to Sacramento and others to the mines. With our present 
courts and criminal practice, they could have continued 
their depredations indefinitely. 



THE MILLS OF THE GODS 185 

A Committee of Vigilance, or Board of Public Safety, 
was organized by 700 of the best citizens, with constitu- 
tion, by-laws, executive officers, and a bank account. It 
was somewhat different from any organization ever before 
effected on a similar scale and by such a class of men. 

Again a period of tranquillity, until in 1856 the young 
bay city suddenly found itself in the toils of another 
monster of iniquity, not this time men from England's 
convict colony, but from our own dear native land, from 
Philadelphia, the traditional city of peace and purity; 
from Virginia, the home of gentle chivalry; from Texas, 
the land of bowie-knife bravery. 

These, translated by the ethnic influence of the unac- 
customed air, and by the somewhat too free association 
with exhilarating women and wine, had by some strange 
logic of their own come to regard themselves as the proper 
rulers of the people gathered here, and henceforth they 
proposed to exercise their rights in this respect. 

They were of a different order of humanity they 
claimed, from the damned pork-sellers of Front street, as 
in their classic phraseology they alluded to the merchants 
and business men of the city, though of that same pork, 
southern chivalry would have no hesitation to purchase 
and never pay for, if the gentlemen might obtain it on 
credit. Were they not of the first families of Virginia, 
F. F. V. 's for short? Neither they nor their ancestors 
had been accustomed to work, and as for trade, it was 
vulgar. 

Politics they took to naturally; office was theirs and 
the spoils of office, the latter to be measured by their free 
will and necessities. To rule was their native air; it was 
the province of others to work and support them, as men 
worked for Queen Victoria and her thousand of sisters 
and sons, to work and pay the proper tax, that there 
should always be something in the public coffers for them 
to steal. 

Time passed while the new nationalism unfolded from 



186 RETROSPECTION 

Portsmouth square. On the upper side rose the engine- 
house of the Monumental fire company, whose bell rang 
the citizens to arms and felons to their death. The win- 
dows of the St. Francis hotel, on the upper Clay street 
corner of the Plaza, blinked in the morning sun after a 
night of revels, the noise from which rolled up from the 
great gambling houses below. 

Slowly tolled the engine bells at this fresh offering of 
the people at the shrine of justice, the California com- 
pany's bell striking first and then the Monumental bell. It 
was John Jenkins they were hanging to a high beam of 
the veranda at the south end of the old adobe custom- 
house building, for incendiarism, robbery, and murder. 

Next was James Stuart, murderer, thief, and so forth, 
with Frank Pixley as his attorney, arrested, tried, con- 
demned, and hanged by the citizens. Two others, Whit- 
taker and McKenzie, hanged at the Committee rooms on 
Battery street, and some thirty imprisoned or sent away 
concluded the w r ork of the Committee of 1851. 

In 1856 the work of the Committee was about the same, 
four hanged, Cora and Casey at one time, Hetherington 
and Brace at another time, and a number of others im- 
prisoned or expatriated. 

As compared with the offenses the punishment was 
light. As compared with the crimes and punishments in 
other places, murders and robberies by the thousand, the 
achievement was small. But it was sufficient; the effect 
was pronounced. 

Justification? They would indeed have needed justi- 
fication had they stood inanely by trembling before the 
bogy law, or fearful of their own shadow as did their 
successors at a later day. 

Throughout California, in the mines and on the plains, 
in Oregon and British Columbia, as well as in and around 
the great desert, during all this period of non-rule, arbi- 
trary justice held in check crime, which otherwise would 



THE MILLS OF THE GODS 187 

have rendered the country uninhabitable. In every place 
were certain good citizens, who organized as a moral force, 
and after a brief but fair and effective trial of those caught 
in criminal acts, some were hanged and others driven away. 
Everywhere like prompt and efficient work was done and 
crime was intimidated. 

After Idaho was dismembered and Montana given a 
territorial organization in 1864, and the yield of gold 
became large, Henry Plummer, chief of a band of eighty 
robbers was made sheriff. All went swimmingly for a 
time; the stages and pack-trains carried large quantities 
of treasure and Plummer found the game easy and inter- 
esting. When the trick was discovered a vigilance com- 
mittee of a thousand members was organized and arrests 
were made. Certain lawyers who offered their services 
for the defense were driven from the country, and in due 
time Plummer and fifty others were hanging from trees 
in different parts of the territory. Such wholesale opera- 
tions in the mountains made the achievements at the 
Golden Gate look small. 

The characteristics of crime and criminals in San 
Francisco in 1851 refer to a common class of felons, 
thieves, burglars, and murderers, nearly all of them for- 
eigners. The criminal class of 1856 moved in the higher 
walks 'of life, and its members regarded themselves as 
constituting the best society. There were the governor, 
three supreme court judges, and nearly all of the smaller 
judges and justices of the peace, city and county officials, 
newspaper proprietors, and a large following of high-class 
loafers. 

Their crimes were as a rule political, but they were 
free with bowie-knife and pistol whenever any one stood 
in their way. They were mostly Americans, and southern- 
ers, slave-holders of Virginia and fire-eaters from Texas 
and the Carolinas, like the big Indians and the big Eng- 
lishmen, too proud or too lazy to work, yet not above liv- 
ing on the work of others. 



188 RETROSPECTION 

They usurped the offices of town, county, and state, 
and as a class were as distinct as are the high-crime anti- 
prosecution people of to-day. They were largely hibitues 
of gambling saloons and familiar with prostitutes. The 
people were their prey, the merchants and business men 
they regarded as mercenaries, while mechanics and other 
laborers were poor white trash. 

I cannot honor the names and deeds of all this high 
society set of the olden lime on these pages, suffice it to 
say that among their number were governors and 
chief justices, the Honorable Judge Edward McGowan, 
thief and cutthroat like the others, who though not all 
of them criminals of the common order were most 
of them high-class men-killers ; Billy Mulligan, court official 
and tout; Casey, editor; Cora, pimp; Nugent, editor; Jack 
Hays, sheriff ; Palmer Cook and company, cutthroat bank- 
ers and manipulators of the public funds; I. C. Woods, 
manager of Adams and company, insolvent express men 
and bankers; J. Y. McDuffie, United States marshal and 
gambler; honest Harry Meiggs, absconder; Yankee Sul- 
livan, ballot-box stuffer, and a prosecuting attorney who 
would never prosecute one of those who had helped to elect 
him. The difference of high society criminality then and 
now was that southern chivalry loved manslaughter while 
the northern pork-sellers love money. 

Such were the limbs of the law during this reign of 
law, the fundamental principle of which was that never 
one of the fraternity however guilty should be punished. 

Here are some of the doings that led to the greatest of 
popular demonstrations, in the cause of civic righteous- 
nesSj without subversion of the law or of the government, 
that the w r orld has ever seen, namely, the San Francisco 
Vigilance Committee of 1856. 

James King of William, native of the District of 
Columbia, and former banker of San Francisco, issued on 



THE MILLS OF THE GODS 189 

the 8th of October, 1855, the first number of the Evening 
Bulletin, in which prominent offenders were attacked 
with a virulent pen. Warned by his friends that his life 
was in danger he scourged offenders more severely than 
ever. 

Charles Duane, Casey, Cora, Woolly Kearny, Billy 
Mulligan, Yankee Sullivan, Martin Gallagher, Tom Cun- 
ningham, and all that class of shoulder-striking ballot- 
box stuffing politicians, high-crime judges, and all ruffians 
who made themselves conspicuous in public affairs, like 
the notorious politico-banking firms of Palmer Cook and 
company, and Adams and company, he tore in pieces with 
almost savage ferocity. 

Charles Cora brutally shot to death United States 
Marshal Richardson; then he nestled safely in the bosom 
of the law until the long arm of vigilance dragged him 
forth. Billy Mulligan, his keeper, was Cora's friend. 

Burst forth the Bulletin, "Hang Billy Mulligan. That's 
the word! If Mr. Sheriff Scannell does not remove Billy 
Mulligan from his present post as keeper of the county 
jail, and Mulligan lets Cora escape, and if necessary to 
get rid of the sheriff, hang him, hang the sheriff ! ' ' 

"The fact that Casey has been an inmate of Sing Sing 
prison, in New York, is no offense against the laws of 
this state; nor is the fact of his having stuffed himself 
through the ballot-box as elected to the board of super- 
visors from a district where it is said he was not even a 
candidate, any justification for Mr. Bagley to shoot Casey, 
however richly the latter may deserve to have his neck 
stretched for such fraud on the people. ' 9 

On the 12th of December the editorial of the Bulletin 
says: "The people of this city are not in favor of taking 
the law into their own hands if justice can be done in the 
courts; and no class of men can be found in this com- 
munity more in favor of law and order than the members 
of the vigilance committee. But if the courts were to re- 
lapse into the former farcial apologies we had, it would 



190 RETROSPECTION 

require but a few hours to again call into action the same 
body of men, as before, the best business men of the city 
as members and co-workers. ' ' 

4 'Bets are offered," King writes on the 22d of Novem- 
ber, "that the editor of the Bulletin will not be in exist- 
ence twenty days longer." 

On the 14th of May, 1856, James King of William was 
shot by James P. Casey, who was hanged by the vigilance 
committee on the 22d, just as the undertakers were thrust- 
ing the coffined martyr into the plumed hearse, which led 
the procession, two miles in length, away to the lone moun- 
tain. 

The day after the assassination the editorial column 
of the Bulletin was a blank, speaking louder in its white 
empty silence than even when filled with the flaming words 
of its director. 

The vigilance committee of 1851 had never been for- 
mally disbanded, yet a new organization was at once effected 
with William T. Coleman at its head, which at the comple- 
tion of its work numbered ten thousand of the best citizens 
of San Francisco. 

The governor, with Captain Sherman and Mr. Garri- 
son, went about among the citizens to see what could be 
done. Coming upon the president of the committee, Mr. 
Coleman, they asked him what was the trouble. 

"Outrages are of a constant occurrence," he said. 
"Our suffrages are profaned, our fellow-citizens are shot 
down in the street, while the courts afford us no redress. ' ' 

"The courts are the proper remedy; there is no neces- 
sity to raise a mob," replied the governor. 

"Sir," said Coleman, "this is not a mob, but a delib- 
erate body of law-abiding citizens pledged to do their 
duty. It is a government within a government, the very 
heart of government pulsating under the poisonous effects 
of unrebuked villainy. You know as well as I that it 
is idle to look for justice at the hand of these courts of 
law." 



THE MILLS OF THE GODS 191 

On the south side of Sacramento street, below Front, 
rooms were secured, and a fortress of bags filled with sand 
was constructed and called Fort Gunnybags. 

John Nugent, Irish duelist and friend of southern 
chivalry, was the able editor of the most influential news- 
paper of the city, the source of whose greatest profit was 
the advertisements of the auctioneers, which filled every 
morning a page. This journal, the Herald, during the 
earlier part of the crusade was stanch on the side of the 
stranglers, as the men of vigilance were sometimes called. 
In their previous efforts the Herald was loud in its com- 
mendation of latter-day vigilance, but when crime became 
aristocratic the Herald grew quite rabid in denouncing 
those who opposed it. 

The merchants met and took away their auction adver- 
tisements, and gave them to the Alta California. Next 
morning a blank white page was seen where the auction 
advertisements were wont to be. Whereupon this bluff: 
"We assure those gentlemen who have joined in this un- 
just, wanton, and despicable crusade against us that we 
will make them hide their heads for very shame before 
we are done with them. ' ' 

Poor little foxy, mettlesome, Johnny Nugent ! Small, of 
light complexion and delicate features, soft and slow of 
speech, modest and sensitive, yet lion-hearted and intel- 
lectually great; he made his one mistake, only one, and 
then with his great journal, which truly had been a bright 
light for half a decade, flickered and went out. 

Justice Terry was a hard nut for vigilance to crack. 
The smell of blood made him furious. Unable to resist 
the temptation, he stepped from the supreme bench at 
Sacramento and came to San Francisco to mingle in the 
fray. He stabbed in the neck Hopkins, a vigilance cap- 
tain, sent to arrest one of Terry's friends. Terry was 
arrested, confined for several weeks in the vigilance rooms, 
underwent a long trial, was convicted, condemned, and — 
set at liberty. 



192 RETROSPECTION 

The city at first was indignant at his discharge, but 
soon sober reason returned. To hold long incarcerated 
so high a criminal, if not impossible was contrary to the 
policy or purpose of the Committee, whose object was to 
stifle crime and not to usurp the government. This su- 
preme judge would have been taken from their hands by 
state or federal forces, turned over to the law and sent back 
to his seat of justice. 

After a lingering illness Hopkins recovered, else Terry 
would have hanged. 

Never had any civilized city witnessed a more impres- 
sive spectacle than the final parade and retirement of this 
band of citizens. Brave men and true, self-sacrificing and 
determined, they saw their city foul with immorality and 
crime and rose up and purged it. Soberly, dispassionately, 
they had performed their unwelcome task, not one mis- 
take, not a single discordant note of passion; then they 
laid down their power, the almighty power of the people 
whenever the people choose to exercise it, and returned to 
their personal affairs, good citizens all, respecters of the 
law, still obedient to the law in the face of the jeering law- 
mongers who employ the law .only to serve their own 
purposes. 

It is doubtful if San Francisco will ever see another 
uprising like this. The population is less American and 
more alien, more mercenary now than then; there is less 
manhood in the mixture, less courage, less patriotism. 
Conflicts will come, capital against labor and high crime 
against the people; the battle has yet to be fought out, 
but it will be more brutal and bloody, and ruled less by 
reason, than was the case in the quiet citizen-revolution 
of 1856. 

Pray the gods that their mills may be kept running 
until the superstition and chicane which govern our courts 
of law shall be ground out, when justice and judges shall 
be something more than mechanisms chained to the Jug- 
gernaut of form, when right shall precede precedent 



THE MILLS OF THE GODS 193 

when lawyers shall not be allowed to insult men and tor- 
ture women on the witness stand, when competent and 
responsible judges shall do the work of ignorant and 
stupid jurymen, when accusers shall be required to act 
promptly and make good their accusation or drop it, when 
court routine shall be conducted more upon the principles 
of common-sense and common honesty, more work and less 
delay being required of judges who should dispose of their 
cases in one-fifth of the time now taken, when justice 
shall be considered before law and the spirit of the law 
before the letter of the law, when rich and poor shall 
be treated alike, and insanity, informality, or other like 
trivial pretense shall not shield a convicted criminal. 

The world moves. We may be sure that a change will 
come, that our courts of law will not always be courts of 
charlatanry, and that administrators of the law will be 
something else than images cast in bronze set up for the 
embarrassment of the people. 

''Though the mills of God grind slowly. 
Yet they grind exceeding small ; 
Though with patience he stands waiting, 
With exactness grinds he all." 



CHAPTER XI 

THE INTERREGNUM 

LIKE the swing of the pendulum which regulates the 
running of the clock the progress of civilization 
sways to the right and to the left, thus preserving the 
happy mean which alone endures with time. 

For there is no period in progress, whether for a year 
or for a day, of which we can say all has been well, or 
all has been ill; wherefore we must differentiate political 
periods and strike a balance in order to determine of any 
epoch if wickedness was then in the ascendent or if 
righteousness reigned. When there are mainly honest 
men in office and a moral tone pervading the community, 
although vagrant rascality may be hovering about the 
purlieus, we feel justified in saying that here we have an 
Interregnum of crime, particularly when the beginning 
and end of the term are both marked by a preponderance 
of evil. 

Thus in the brief residence of Americans upon the 
shores of the Pacific we find in all not more than two 
score years of a government by the people for the 
people. 

These notable years, which were they? Following the 
purification by the vigilance committee of 1851, and before 
the advent of southern chivalry, and their expatriation by 
the grand tribunal of 1856 there were three years. From 
1856 to the coming of the railroad men in 1870 were four- 
teen years. Then forty years in the valley of humilia- 
tion. A bright morning of promise, a black cloud of 
crime, deliverance of the people by the people, then crime 

194 



THE INTERREGNUM 195 

and deliverance again, the latter deliverance not the work 
of the people, but of one man of the people. 

There, then, were the epochs of republican history 
reckoned by periods of wrong doing — seven years of 
criminal sway from 1849; fourteen years interregnum of 
crime from the vigilance deliverance of 1856; forty years 
of disgraceful subserviency to corporate crime until the 
final delivery by Hiram Johnson. 

How delightful to walk the clean streets newly swept 
of vice! How exquisite to breathe the pure air from the 
ocean and the dunes unmixed with immorality! Wives 
and daughters may now go forth unattended, fearing no 
insult or wanton leer from male or female passer by. 
Cleanliness is good; virtue is better than vice; purity is 
preferable to filth. Sons and subordinates can walk about 
with uplifted mien and thoughts less sordid and eyes less 
sensuous, while the windows of voluptuous halls are boarded 
over, and the lights in the great gambling saloons are ex- 
tinguished never to be renewed. 

As with the advent of law crime broke out afresh in 
the new communities, so with the subordination of law 
and the rise of justice crime disappeared. Then, again, 
we endeavor to fit the machinery of law to our necessities, 
and become once more that delectable entity law-abiding 
citizens, in which effort, however, we are only partially 
successful. 

Even in our modern Republic, as in days of old, the 
few rule the many. Humanity is so timid, so fearful 
amidst the thunderings of Sinai, the rattling of the heavens 
and the quakings of earth, that we are never content with- 
out some despotic heel upon our necks, whether of govern- 
ment, law, or religion. 

At the elections following the disbandment of the vigil- 
ance committee of 1856 the vote was larger than ever 
before, and the best and purest men were placed in office. 
For a brief period citizens throughout the state, mindful 



196 RETROSPECTION 

of their duty, attended the polls and took an interest in 
public affairs, though in time growing lax again, as it 
always has been and always will be. 

The new government was wholly without means, the 
slippery ones when they were swept away taking care first 
to sweep the public tills. Judge of the police court was 
Henry P. Coon, deacon of Calvary Presbyterian church, 
and a very good deacon, too; likewise a good judge, not 
much of a lawyer, but all the better for that; he was a 
physician in good practice, serving rich and poor alike. 

The doctor, unanimously elected, seated himself on the 
judicial bench prepared to make short work of the cases 
brought before him every morning. He was kind to the 
Culprits; he was kindness itself; yet he well knew that 
kindness alike to the just and to the unjust consisted in 
putting a stop at once to wickedness of every sort; where- 
fore the justice he dealt out with swift decision was of the 
brightest quality, undimmed by the pleas of pettifoggers. 

Well, when this late hotbed of unsavory law was 
opened to the light and fumigated by the presence of 
honesty, it was discovered that there was no court record- 
book, the rascals having stolen that too. Which fact be- 
coming known to the elect outside, as the ravens fed 
Elijah so this court was served, though by a crow of an- 
other color, in the tall gaunt form of a wholesale liquor- 
dealer, James Dows by name, who on the opening of the 
new court was seen striding through the crowd with a huge 
blank bcok under his arm, which he laid on the clerk's 
table with the remark, "Contribution to the court," and 
turning on his heel walked away. 

For a period of fifteen years at this juncture San 
Francisco enjoyed the best of governments. The country 
at large, following the flush times, was distinguished by 
the diversity of its characters and accomplishments. There 
were in 1851, as we have seen, convicts from Australia 
and criminals from Mexico whose specialties were burglary 
and murder. These were quickly disposed of by the 



THE INTERREGNUM 197 

citizens, and there was peace again. Then presently there 
came from the south, from the first families of Virginia, 
those who assumed the offices of government as by divine 
right, providence assisting with bowie-knives and false- 
bottomed ballot-boxes, the pork-sellers aforesaid defray- 
ing the cost of government. 

There were Texas fire-eaters, Louisiana gamblers, and 
some quite bright election jugglers from Philadelphia, 
the judges sharing in the loot and looters assisting in the 
halls of justice. Some were hanged and some were shipped 
away, as we have seen, and the air was pure again. The 
work of the grand tribunal had been well and thoroughly 
done. Intimidated crime, its throne vacated, slunk away 
into obscurity. Alien usurpers and southern chivalry 
were relegated to the haunts of indolence and vice. Ras- 
cality was no longer in vogue ; immorality ceased to flaunt 
in gay colors on the public streets; the people declared 
their preference for honesty and decency in high places. 
Good men came forward and accepted office, regardless of 
any sacrifice of personal interests. Those who had given 
their time and pledged their worldly goods to the purga- 
tion of the city would not leave it to be quickly overrun 
again by the rank weeds of misrule. 

Among the leading spirits of the Interregnum were 
Charles Doane, sheriff, late commander of the vigilant 
military forces; Thomas H. Selby, hardware and lead 
works; William T. Coleman, merchant and guardian of 
the public weal, late president of the vigilance committee ; 
MacCrellish, politic proprietor of the Alta California, one 
well paid for his loyalty; Judge McKinstry, Judge Shat- 
tuck; Smiley, auctioneer; Newhall, auctioneer, Billings, 
lawyer and founder of the First Presbyterian church; 
Roberts, merchant and founder of Calvary church; all 
the city offices were filled by honest and efficient men. 
Stephen J. Field took his seat on the state supreme bench, 
later of the United States Supreme court, an able and 
for the most part an upright man. 



198 RETROSPECTION 

The Interregnum secured a sound basis of government 
in the consolidation act, the work of Horace Hawes, before 
mentioned, the chief aim of which was municipal retrench- 
ment by merging the double city and county government 
into one, and reducing the number of officials with their 
large pay or fees. There are other towns still paying 
two men to do the work of one which might well follow this 
example. Taxes were limited to one dollar and sixty-five 
cents, of which thirty-five cents was for schools. The con- 
traction of debt by the municipality was prohibited. 

Burnett, California's first governor, was a plain man 
of common honesty; McDougal, the second governor, was 
a gentleman addicted to deep potations and of no honesty 
at all. Honest and easy the squatters called John Bigler, 
the third governor. About Neely Johnson, Weller, and 
Latham there is little to be said; they were each the usual 
every-day politician of the time, neither more nor less. 

It was during the last days of whiggism, and several new 
political parties were being invented and tried, as the 
people's party, the independent party, the union party, 
know-nothing, American, and other parties finally settling 
down into the republican party. 

In the legislature of 1855 a fierce struggle arose over 
the election of a United States senator, in which Gwin and 
Broderick played prominent parts. 

David C. Broderick was a peculiar political figure, a 
product of the time and place, yet not a type; he was an 
Irishman, born in Kilkenny in 1820. His father, a stone- 
cutter, worked on the Capitol at Washington; the son's 
trade was that of American politician. Opening a saloon 
and joining a fire company in New York, he became a 
true blue Bowery boy, and started out for Congress. A 
very proper though modest beginning for one so lately 
from Kilkenny. 

Strange to say he failed in New York, and came to 
California in 1849, ready to try again and profit by past 



THE INTERREGNUM 199 

experience. Out of cheap gold he coined so-called five 
and ten dollar pieces worth $4 and $8 respectively, and 
made money. There was no cheating about it, no pretense 
that the coins were of full value ; they passed about freely 
enough for a time and that is all people cared about it. 
So with the octagonal fifty dollar slug, worth forty-five dol- 
lars. Then Mr. Broderick studied law and aspired to the 
United States senate. "We may yet see a Kilkenny president. 

As time passed on and the young Irishman gathered 
strength with experience in his ebullient environment, he 
displayed marked ability. Politics were easy then, so 
many of the competent men were just gold-smitten ad- 
venturers and nothing else. Elected to the state senate, 
he became speaker and presided with wisdom and decorum. 
Strong in body and mind, instinctively honest and direct 
in all his moods, he naturally was assertive and im- 
patient under restraint, which made him enemies as well 
as friends. 

Opposed to the extension of slavery, he came in con- 
flict with southern chivalry, and certain gentlemen of that 
school determined on his death. It was arranged that 
one after another should challenge him to mortal combat 
until he should fall. Indeed the risk of the fire-eaters was 
slight, as all were expert with the pistol, and familiar 
with the tricks of the trade, while Broderick was a novice 
and no murderer. He had fought duels before in a big 
boyish way, not wishing to kill or to be killed. Terry 
played with blood, not with boys. Nor had the time ar- 
rived when a California politician could decline a duel 
and retain his influence. 

The southerners most prominent during the earlier 
days of the Interregnum were the able and prominent 
lawyer, A. P. Crittenden; John C. Hays, Texas ranger; 
David S. Terry, state supreme judge; Charles S. Fairfax, 
speaker of the state assembly; Calhoun Benham, Philip 
T. Herbert, who shot a colored waiter in Washington; 
Edmund Randolph, and others of like character. 



200 RETROSPECTION 

A. P. Crittenden, one of the most genial and courteous 
of gentlemen, was shot to death by Laura D. Fair, on the 
Oakland ferry boat, while seated in the midst of his family, 
whom he was escorting home from a visit to the east. Of 
the cruel and unprovoked crime there were hundreds of 
witnesses, yet the trial ran through two or three years, 
the fanial proceedings filling a thousand pages of print. 
The citizens pay the cost and the woman is set free. 

Upon the death of D. D. Colton, lawyer and railroad 
sharp, it was whispered that he was stabbed by a woman, 
though his physicians swore so vehemently that he was 
killed by a fall from a bucking bronco that people felt 
confident that the alleged assassination was true. How 
proud we should be of law, and the illustrious limbs of the 
law, when two of its shining lights could be thus quietly 
snuffed out, as was alleged, and no penalty exacted. 

In the Broderick-Gwin imbroglio, Terry was the first 
to challenge, and indeed no other challenge was necessary. 
Broderick, nervous and awkward, fired before his weapon 
was fairly raised; Terry, cool and deliberate, sent his ball 
an inch below the heart. 

1 ' Ah, I fired too low ! ' ' he said, and went away to 
breakfast. 

"They killed me because I was opposed to the exten- 
sion of slavery and a corrupt administration, ' ' were Brod- 
erick 's last words. 

Land titles came in for serious controversy, the public 
domain and mineral lands and Mexican pueblo rights 
all claiming attention. Squatter riots were not infrequent, 
sometimes ending in bloodshed. 

A navyyard and branch mint were established; also 
a system of coast surveys, and a land commission for the 
settlement of private claims and the survey of the pub- 
lic lands. 

It was thought that the Mexican titles in California 
might be adjudicated in two or three years by creating 



THE INTERREGNUM 201 

a commission of registration to sit in the northern and 
southern districts, to receive from claimants such written 
evidence of title and right of possession as they might 
have received or chose to present, together with whatever 
other evidence they had to offer in support of their claim, 
all of which should be furnished to the state surveyor- 
general, who should proceed to segregate those claims as 
fast as their examinations were completed; and where 
disputes as to boundaries occurred which could not be 
adjusted by the claimants, arbitrators should be called in, 
and their decision should be final, the United States issu- 
ing a patent for the land as thus bounded. 

Had this been done in good faith, most of the lands in 
California covered by Mexican grants would have been 
cut up and disposed of to settlers at low prices, whereas 
by keeping claims in court for from eight to twelve years 
to feed the hungry cormorants of the law, not only were 
the holders ruined but the occupation and improvement 
of the lands by those who wished to purchase them were 
prevented. Another example of the justice and efficiency 
of our laws and law manipulators. 

During the Interregnum the economic as well as the 
political interests of the city and country advanced as 
never before, for the beneficial influence of the San Fran- 
cisco vigilance committee of 1856 had extended over the 
entire state, opening broad avenues of industry, both 
agricultural and manufacturing. 

Woolen mills were set up at the Mission and their 
product became famous the world over. Large factories 
of boots and shoes, hats, clothing, grain and fruit bags, 
were established ; wine-cellars were filled ; the ship-yards 
rang with the noise of the hammer, the steel industry 
developed largely, and famous battle-ships were built in 
competition with the best yards at the east. 

A dozen foundries cast improvised machinery, some 
of huge dimensions, for the Nevada mines and for Cali- 
fornia irrigation works; the cable-car clutch was invented by 



202 RETROSPECTION 

Mr. Hallidie, of the Mechanics' Institute, and put in 
operation over Clay street hill. 

The lumber interests assumed large proportions; lead 
and leather wojrks and planing and paper mills were 
established. Then besides shipbuilding there were cooper- 
age, box-making, with furniture, piano, billiard-table, to- 
bacco, sugar, and other factories; also chemical works, 
powder works, and breweries. 

Agriculture and horticulture assumed larger propor- 
tions. Grain and gold increased in production; canneries 
and creameries were established; and for the extensive 
sugar refineries a large acreage was devoted to sugar beets. 

Labor was free; laborers were here in plenty; they 
were satisfied with a reasonable wage, and a thousand 
new industries was the result. All was life and activity, 
public cleanliness and decency prevailed, and with good 
government and economic expenditures, wealth and prog- 
ress appeared on every side. 

With the large acreage devoted to grain, clipper ships 
bringing goods from the east now no longer returned in 
ballast, but, on the contrary, many came out empty to load 
with wheat for Liverpool. The fruit industry arose with 
flattering prospects, led by Mr. Hatch of Solano, pros- 
pects too flattering when joined with inexperience. The 
decline which followed from ignorance and the dishonesty 
of agents was but temporary, after which the industry 
rose to higher proportions than ever. 

Mr. Hatch was a fine specimen of a California fruit- 
grower, intelligent, genial, honest and direct in his deal- 
ings; sanguine yet sincere, and an enthusiast in his occu- 
pation. His methods were peculiar; under conditions 
then existing they were sound, and but for the temporary 
decline in the industry he would have made himself rich. 
His way was in this wise. Seeing a tract of land suited to 
his purpose he would address the owner. 

' ' How much for your farm V 9 

"Forty thousand dollars." ., y. 



THE INTERREGNUM 203 

"I will give you forty-five thousand, with interest at 
eight per cent., payable in five years, no payment down, 
but with the agreement to plant it in fruit trees, and keep 
them in proper state of cultivation, which will at once be 
ample security, and double the value of the land for the 
benefit of to whomsoever it may revert, at the expiration 
of the five years.' ' 

On these terms, which seemed safe for all concerned, 
for prices of fruit then were high, Mr Hatch borrowed 
from the banks and planted extensively, but was finally 
caught in the financial distress which followed the advent 
of the railroad and came to grief. 

Water and gas were introduced in the larger towns, 
and fire companies organized. Schools and churches every- 
where abounded, while the masons, oddfellows, and other 
benevolent societies were well in evidence. California pro- 
ceeded to array herself in all the frills and furbelows of 
civilization. Wages were fair, and in a cool, equable 
climate, with cheap food and house-rent, and free schools, 
the severe drudgery being relegated to Asiatics while 
skilled labor was reserved for Europeans, the social and 
domestic conditions of the laborer were better than ever 
before in any country. 

The birth and booming of towns continued, and ex- 
tended over a wide area. Like rushes for new gold dig- 
gings in the mountains, so with regard to town-making; 
excitements arose, declined, and broke out again, lots being 
surveyed and mapped sometimes for ten miles around the 
centre of the town. 

With the rest, on the other side of the shield we may 
see pictured another of those wild excitements attending 
the occupation of the west. Companies were organized 
and stock certificates issued to represent the gold-quartz 
crushers of Grass Valley and the silver mines of Nevada, 
some of them good, many of them worthless. 

With a fine rage which kept roaring in San Francisco 



204 RETROSPECTION 

two boards of brokers brought to their ruin thousands, all 
classes falling to the fascination. As in the time of the 
Mississippi bubble, or of the Scots Darien colony, rich men 
and poor alike, banker and hod-carrier, women and clergy- 
men, all were seized with the infatuation to become sud- 
denly rich. 

Along the crest of the Comstock lode the land was 
measured off in feet, and the front foot became the finan- 
cial unit. A foot was valued at ten dollars or ten thou- 
sand. The owner of a few feet, where the dividend was 
for a few months large and regular, was as appeared to 
him at the time rich for life, or as appeared in the end 
rich until the collapse came. 

Of the wild speculative days of the Comstock mines 
which made wealthy a few sharp operators, as Lucky 
Baldwin, Keene, J. D. Fry, Flood and O'Brien, Mackay 
and Fair, while reducing thousands to poverty, was Will- 
iam C. Ralston, who came to California in the service of 
the Garrison line cf steamers via Nicaragua. As one of 
the banking firm of Garrison Morgan Fretz and Ralston 
he became acquainted with D. 0. Mills, then a modest 
banker of Sacramento. 

"With Mills he founded the Bank of California, of 
which he was at first cashier while Mills was president, 
later becoming president and dominator. Ralston ad- 
vanced rapidly; he was essentially a product of California 
and of the time. A young man with the bluff hearty man- 
ners and assurance of middle age, he became popular. On 
assuming the presidency of the bank he set up a spacious 
residence at Belmont, and drove daily to and from the 
bank, some twenty miles or more. He entertained lavishly, 
inviting almost every distinguished visitor to San Fran- 
cisco to spend a day or more at Belmont, until his name 
became known in all the great centres of finance for his 
business resources and ability no less than for his hos- 
pitality. Many persons, young and old, by his counsel 
or assistance were saved from ruin. 



THE INTERREGNUM 205 

For a time he was the most conspicuous personage on 
the Pacific coast. Rapidly unfolding under the shining 
heaps of gold and silver in his vaults, in due time he came 
to regard himself the king of commerce, supreme in busi- 
ness, invincible in financial affairs. His power and pride 
made jealous the gods, and with all his broad experience 
and keen penetration he could not see into the bowels of 
the Sierra, could not see the silver bonanza the saloon 
men, Flood and O'Brien, kept hidden from public view 
in the Consolidated Virginia mine, of which they then 
held control. So when Ralston sold short he was allowed to 
pledge himself to deliver more stock than was ever issued. 

In the bank at a meeting of his directors he was asked 
to retire, which he did, seating himself at his desk in the 
president's office. Presently Mr. Mills appeared and 
asked him to resign. Without a word Ralston took up a 
pen and wrote his resignation as president of the bank. 
Mills withdrew. Ralston arose, and taking his hat walked 
over to North beach, where he was accustomed to bathe 
in the Bay. He was an expert swimmer, and his long 
vigorous strokes soon carried him well away from the 
shore. Presently two boatmen on the beach noticing a 
strange struggle going on in the water some distance 
away put out in their boat. Ralston was past recovery 
when they reached him. His life insurance of $100,000 
was paid, the companies not caring to bring up the question 
of suicide under the existing excitement. 

Ralston 's defalcation amounted to several millions; 
the bank was completely wrecked, as Mr. Mills informed 
me, and had to be capitalized anew, the business and con- 
nections being too valuable to be sacrificed. Mr. Mills' 
loss was $700,000; Mr. Baldwin's, including stock and de- 
posits, was twice that amount. 

Lesson to young men — and old ones : When you have 
all the world can give, don't stake it for something more. 

The civil war which fell so heavily upon the patriots 



206 RETROSPECTION 

of the east proved a pecuniary advantage to the gold-bear- 
ing states of the Pacific. It was a period of enforced pros- 
perity, so far as the war was concerned, for the people of 
the west coast were loyal to the union, and would have 
touched no money made at the expense of the cause. 

As it happened, that which brought profit to California 
was not only of the greatest advantage, but was of vital 
consequence to the union cause. For as the financial affairs 
of the government declined, and the life or death struggle 
grew fiercer, the monarchies of Europe meanwhile watch- 
ing for some excuse to interfere, watching with unholy 
desire to recognize the rebellion and break into fragments 
the American republic, the steady arrival at New York 
from San Francisco of two or three millions in gold two or 
three times a month, as elsewhere in this Retrospection 
explained, held in check the inflated greenback currency 
and saved the credit of the nation ; for while the premium 
on gold at one time in New York approached 300, at Rich- 
mond confederate currency fluttered toward 3000, — that 
is to say, it became worthless, and the confederation bank- 
rupt. So that if with this regular inflow of gold the prob- 
able success of the union cause fell so low in the sensitive 
minds of the financiers of New York and London as in- 
dicated by the value they placed upon United States' 
promises to pay, where would have been the cause, the 
credit of the nation, and its power to raise money for 
carrying on the war without this California gold? 

The loyalty of California to the union cause, from first 
to last, was manifested in various ways. Companies were 
enlisted for the war, but greatly to the disappointment 
of the men they were held in reserve on the Pacific side, 
some in California and some in Arizona, owing to threat- 
ened outbreak among the Indians, and the appearance in 
Pacific waters of the confederate cruiser Alabama, playing 
havoc with defenseless shipping. Nevertheless some union 
men, and many more secessionists, found their way east 
and joined their respective armies. Patriotic meetings 



THE INTERREGNUM 207 

were held throughout the state and large sums raised for 
the sanitary commission. 

Doctor Scott, pastor of Calvary church, was from New 
Orleans, and a secessionist. He displayed his sentiments 
cautiously at first, merely changing the form in his usual 
Sunday morning prayer from a blessing on "the president 
of the United States" to a blessing on "the presidents of 
these American states." San Francisco was in no humor 
to hear prayers put up in the pulpit for Lincoln and 
Davis jointly; so the next Sunday found the pews filled 
with strangers, some of whom were rather rough in ap- 
pearance. The revised formula did not appear in the 
morning invocation, and no word was spoken relative to 
the war in the sermon. After service the doctor was 
somewhat severely hustled into his carriage by a crowd 
collected about the door, but no other violence was offered. 
The next departing steamer had on board Doctor Scott 
and his family bound for Europe. 

When the news of Lincoln's death reached San Fran- 
cisco, a man on the street was heard to mutter, ' ' I am glad 
of it." Instantly he doubled himself up and dropped; 
such was the temper of the time. 

The good fortune growing out of the war which befell 
California without will or effort of her own laid the 
foundation of many moderate fortunes, some of which 
remain to this day. 

In the California legislature was passed what was 
called the specific contract law; that is to say, contracts 
might be made wherein the consideration or kind of pay- 
ment was specified, it might be in lumber, or wheat, or 
gold. Commercial paper, notes, bonds, all obligations 
not upon a greenback basis were specified payable in gold 
coin of the United States. For this no question was raised 
as to any intention of repudiating the lawful currency of 
the government, for the loyalty of California to the union 
was already established. 

The people of California, and of the whole Pacific sea- 



208 RETROSPECTION 

board for that matter, never fancied the handling of paper 
money, and to some extent the prejudice exists to this 
day. Before the war there were afloat at the east loads 
of bills of countless banks fluctuating daily in value from 
one hundred per cent, down to nothing, and our people 
would have none of them. 

Gold was a product of the country; merchants sold 
their goods for gold, and bankers kept their accounts upon 
a gold basis. For each of the thousand minor transac- 
tions of the day there were of course no written specific 
contracts, but in everything bought and sold on a gold 
basis there was an implied contract as to terms of pay- 
ment. Thus the business of this entire country for a num- 
ber of years amounting to half of the period of this Inter- 
regnum was done upon honor. The debtor could at any 
moment liquidate his obligation, whether of five dollars 
or of fifty thousand, in legal tender notes, that is to say, 
lawful currency of the United States, whose validity none 
could dispute ; but to do so brought dishonor, disgrace, and 
loss of credit, considerations often more powerful than any 
embodied in the written law. 

Thus lay transformed this city of San Francisco, from 
an expanse of rolling dunes between sea and bay, from a 
tented encampment and edifices of brush and boards, to a 
city of streets and houses unapproached by any of similar 
age for size and substantial construction; from a com- 
munity of revelling adventurers to one of high average 
respectability and intelligence. A choice selection of man- 
hood from all parts of the globe was here congregated, 
with ability and enterprise both well and ill directed. As 
devastating fires had weeded the architectural parts of 
the frail and unseemly, so vigilance movements, assisted 
by gold-rushes and filibuster schemes, had purified society 
of its worst elements, and were now raising the city to 
a model for order and municipal administration. 

The whilom effervescent hamlet now stood the ac- 



THE INTERREGNUM 209 

knowledged metropolis of the Pacific, after a brief struggle 
with threatening vicissitudes, while the tributary country 
had developed from the mining field with flitting camps 
to a substantial state, with a steady mining industry, and 
fast unfolding agricultural and manufacturing interests, 
which promised to rival if not to eclipse the foremost 
sections of the union. 

Thus had been surpassed the wildest dreams which had 
incited the coming of the gold-seekers, and the founding of 
empire out of the manifold resources which one after an- 
other unfolded before the unexpectant eyes of these 
builders of a new commonwealth. A series of surprises 
marked the advance of the state as well as of the city, the 
one a wilderness bursting with bloom, the other a mart of 
progress purified by many fiery ordeals. 



CHAPTER XII 

EVOLUTION OF HIGH CRIME 

SEVERAL causes united, about the middle of the cen- 
tury, to lower the standard of public morality in the 
United States. Hitherto business had pursued its even 
way along lines accredited in the great marts of commerce 
throughout the world, wilful deviation from which, for 
illicit ends, was sure to result in disgrace and ruin. 
Moderation was a virtue; excess in any direction was re- 
garded as a deflection from the right path. 

Ships made their voyages about the world, trading, 
and as a rule securing a fair return, with now and then 
a more fortunate venture, but all in a legitimate way. Un- 
fair dealings were regarded as piratical. So on shore, the 
lines of commercial and political rectitude were clearly 
marked, and there were likewise but few land pirates in 
those days. 

Some fortunes were made in furs, or what were deemed 
fortunes, fifty or a hundred thousand dollars; American 
millionaires, rare enough specimens in those days, were 
gods of finance, like the Rothschilds, and could be counted 
on one's fingers. There were some large deals in land, 
but where government had so much to give away there was 
little chance for excessive profits. 

Certain bankers made fortunes, and a few mercantile 
houses rose to distinction; but the progress of the nation 
toward wealth was so gradual, and its distribution among 
the people so uniform, that it all came as expected bless- 
ings not to be specially regarded. 

The merchants and bankers of the earlier epoch were 

210 



EVOLUTION OF HIGH CRIME 211 

men of uprightness of character and with a keen sense of 
moral cleanliness and business honor, a lively interest in 
the welfare of the community, ever recognizing their 
neighbors' rights while themselves setting an example of 
good citizenship. Such men were Stephen Girard, George 
Peabody, and others of that class, who would no more 
think of wrongfully crushing a competitor or bribing an 
official than they would think of committing murder. 
Capital in the hands of such is sterilized to evil ways. 

Gradually and imperceptibly speculation crept in, that 
insidious foe to commercial rectitude and personal in- 
tegrity. Opportunities for various indulgencies came with 
the Mexican war, an event which sent waves of disgust 
throughout the land. It was well known at the time, and 
fully proved later, that the larger part of the demands 
made by citizens of the United States upon Mexico were 
fraudulent, trumped up against a people weakened by 
internal strife, and with whom we had no quarrel or cause 
of quarrel. 

It is well known that these claims were invented by 
southern fire-eaters and slaveholders, with the president of 
the United States at their head, for the predetermined pur- 
pose of inciting war and acquiring more slave territory. 

James K. Polk and his Mexican war, the man inhumane 
and void of integrity, the measure an injustice practised 
upon a weaker neighbor. 

The man, this president of 1845, was a champion of 
African enslavement, and slavery is debasing. War is 
demoralizing; an unjust war with a veneer of enthusiasm 
is a prostitution of patriotism. Already Texas had been 
brought forward with soil and area sufficient for breeding 
and working ten millions of black men; the California 
country, if it could be secured for slavery, might serve for 
another ten millions. Heads of government occupied in 
such issues, and holding them ever before the people as vital 
to their interests exercised a baneful influence upon the 
conscience of the nation. 



212 RETROSPECTION 

Then came on that other war, the war for the union. 
If ever there was a cause demanding a cardinal sacrifice, 
even to the mutual butchering of a million noble young 
men of kindred race and aspirations, this was one, the issue 
meaning life or death to the Republic. Yet human hyenas 
came forward from the sinks of iniquity to prey upon the 
struggling nation, renegade northerners entering into con- 
spiracy with renegade southerners to cheat the soldiers 
that stood forth doomed to die for their country, to cheat 
them out of the poor remnants of comfort which might be 
left to them for their few remaining days. 

The presidents following Mr. Polk were not inspiring 
factors as leaders of the nation, and the civil war brought 
with it a multitude of evils. Politicians turned their at- 
tention to business and became experts in rascality. It 
was then that Big Business learned to swear off its taxes, 
beat the customs, bamboozle society, and properly handle 
weights and measures in dealing with the government. In 
the marts of commerce the hearts of the great money- 
makers hardened, and merchants became lax in their deal- 
ings. An army made barefoot by shoddy shoes, or ill from 
infected food; a thousand men sent to their death at sea 
from a rotten hulk made small impression upon their moral 
sense or sympathies. 

Thus the old-time kindred feeling, which in the heart 
of the earlier Americans was an obsession, became cold like 
the metal for which every one was now reaching out 
avaricious hands. 

It is not therefore without reason that we place in the 
midst of these mid-century wars and their attendant issues 
the advent of high crime, by which term is meant that 
sort of wrong doing for which persons of wealth and in- 
fluence hold themselves immune, not expecting or deserv- 
ing punishment for crimes for which the poor should justly 
suffer for example's sake. 

Such assumption, which is claimed on the ground that 
the prosecution and punishment of this class of citizens 



EVOLUTION OF HIGH CRIME 213 

disturbs capital and interferes with business, is to say the 
least the height of egotism and impudence, an insult to 
common-sense and an outrage on common decency too pal- 
pable to discuss. 

It is a strange thing, strange that man, made upright, 
endowed as he supposes with immortality, given every- 
thing, given all that Satan offered to Christ, it is strange 
that he should go on forever seeking out so many inven- 
tions. 

Let us pause and consider for a moment who and what 
we are, as we stand here to-day with high crime still raging 
around us, threatening destruction. 

Consider the position of the United States in the world 
of humanity. We are a part of the foremost civilization, 
one with the greatest of nations. We have at our disposal all 
the blessings of life and liberty ; there is not and never has 
been a people more highly favored by nature and develop- 
ment. We owe allegiance to neither prince nor potentate; 
the shams and hallucinations of kingship do not reach us; 
our minds are free from any doctrine of divine rulership. 

We are subject to no religious tyranny; we are over- 
whelmed by no great superstition; we are not forced to 
bow down to Baal or kneel with our master in the house 
of Rimmon. Blessed with all the benefits and privileges of 
self-government, we are an absolutely free people, free to 
think and speak and act according to the dictates of our 
own will and conscience, restraining ourselves only from 
injury to others; rendering account only to ourselves, to 
our better selves, the divine force in the hearts and minds 
of all the people. 

We are held by no dictatorship for enforced military 
service in time of peace, while war is rapidly approaching 
the impossible ; we are taxed to support neither church nor 
clergy, neither a great standing army nor an inoperative 
navy, neither an idle aristocracy nor a family of royal 
drones swarming with a worthless progeny. 
8 



214 RETROSPECTION 

What civilization and human progress have stood for, 
what men for these thousands of years have been fighting 
for, they have freely given us and fully assured to our 
children. Free schools, colleges, universities, and all sorts 
of educational institutions are established in every city 
and at the cross-roads, while public and private moneys are 
poured out like water for the further enlightenment of the 
race. 

We have become a mighty nation. With lands un- 
limited we have thrown open our doors and welcomed all 
to enter and participate in the choicest gifts of nature. 
We have subdued the wilderness, cleared away the forests / 
reclaimed the waste places, planted corn on the plains, 
covered the prairies with waving grain and the hills with 
cattle; we have watered the deserts and turned them into 
beautiful gardens and fruitful fields; we have planted 
vineyards and made wine, planted olives and made food, 
grown cotton for garments, tobacco for comfort, and plants 
to feed the little weavers of silk. 

We have opened the veins of the mountains and brought 
forth precious treasure, gold and silver and iron, copper 
and coal; we have tapped the lower depths and set 
flowing into our cisterns oil for a thousand industries. 
Miracles have been wrought by human agency or divine 
interposition for the well-being and progress of man. 

We extract mysterious energies from the forces of 
nature and attach them to the car of progress. We harness 
the lightning to the plow and make steam to serve factories 
and railways. We skim the earth with swift-running 
vehicles, and put forth wings to fly in the air. We have 
cut the continent with a canal and have opened land-ways 
and waterways for many thousands of miles. We have 
placed upon the ocean floating palaces for travel, and 
craft of every kind for commerce. We have taught elec- 
tricity to speak ; we wire the lightning, send waves of in- 
telligence through the air and throw the human voice into 
dead matter there to remain for intercourse with generations 



EVOLUTION OF HIGH CRIME 215 

yet unborn. Even sickness and suffering have been made 
to yield to some extent to hygiene and other branches of 
medical science. Consider these things and compare our 
condition with that of humanity a thousand years ago, a 
hundred years ago. 

In many of the paths of science, invention, and the solu- 
tion of world problems, in penetrating the mysteries of 
the universe and of man, more progress has been made 
during the past century than in all the eternity of time 
preceding it. 

And what payment have we to make for these gifts 
of the gods? None. What return is demanded of us for 
all these inestimable blessings? None whatever. We are 
asked only to be true to ourselves and honest with our 
neighbor, only to be true and honest with our goddess Na- 
ture who has so liberally bestrewn our path with benefac- 
tions. 

Also to be content. The cravings of dissatisfaction, of 
avarice or other unholy desire is a poor return for loving- 
kindness. Were there under heaven such a state as human 
contentment, one would think that this itching for advan- 
tage, this craze for power should find an end; that we 
should be satisfied. When we have all that earth can 
give, what fools to sigh for more! Nevertheless we are so 
made, fashioned in foolishness. And as we sigh here for 
the unattainable so sighed Lucifer in heaven; archangel 
was not enough, he would be as God. Yet to be content 
of achievement were to arrest progress, to stop the wheels 
of civilization. Work was given us for our recreation, and 
death for our repose. Well, then if we cannot be content, 
let us at all events try to be decent. 

Among the good men and pure women that constitute 
the greater part of our people are some whose moral sense 
has been perverted, whose ideals of honor have been low- 
ered, and whose consciences have become seared by strenu- 
ous effort and prosperity. Unmindful of what they owe 



216 RETROSPECTION 

to God and their country, indifferent as to the effect of 
their evil ways upon others, they devote their lives and 
sacrifice their souls to the acquisition of wealth. 

They establish a code of ethics for themselves, set up 
their own standards of right and wrong, one standard for 
private morality and another for public morality, one for 
good business and another for good government. They 
pride themselves in the fancied possession of a good private 
character while indulging in crimes against the public. 
They spend money as freely to promote business as to 
bleed the public treasury. To lie in business is business, to 
lie in private is indecent ; to cheat the government is finance, 
to cheat at cards is infamous. 

They set up their own standards of crimes and punish- 
ment. They unblushingly promulgate the principle of in- 
equality before the law, punishment for the poor but none 
for the rich. Great crimes for the promotion of prosperity 
are lauded; small thefts to avert starvation are sinful and 
must be punished. To buy a stolen watch, knowing it to have 
been stolen, is vulgar as well as wicked ; to buy a franchise 
stolen from the city is to cheat the city while debauching 
a public official, yet the bribed alone should be punished, 
as the briber was only removing an obstacle standing in 
the way of his business. 

It is the buying of stolen goods, this bribery of officials, 
the buyer being the real thief meriting the severer punish- 
ment. Worse than the thief himself, for he makes the 
thief; worse than the murderer himself for he hands him 
the dynamite and sets him on to kill. Stolen goods, stolen 
from your city or your state, which as a respectable citizen 
you should faithfully serve ; stolen from your fellow citizens 
whose patronage adds to your wealth ; stolen from the men 
who make you, who support you; stolen from your friends 
who trust you, — the act of a dastard indeed ! 

Yet more, you poison the fountains of civic purity and 
corrupt public sentiment until it stinks with dishonesty. 
With your money and influence you elect base men to office, 



EVOLUTION OF HIGH CRIME 217 

men who are a disgrace and a degradation to the munici- 
pality and to the commonwealth, men whom you know you 
can buy, whom you have bought beforehand, district at- 
torneys who promise not to prosecute your criminals, a 
supreme judge who is sure to find for you and your friends 
a convenient technicality to set you free. 

Time was when the American father's words to his son 
were words of wisdom; be honest, be diligent, be pure. 
Now what does he say ? ' ' Be alert, watch the other fellow, 
beat him down; watch your chance with the government, 
easy old cow to milk ; watch your chance for doubling your 
money, never mind old-woman talk." 

Thus dishonored himself he brings up his sons to dis- 
honor; all the young men about him while feeling his 
evil influence are taught to emulate him in gaining wealth, 
even to emulate his tricky ways and receive praise therefor. 
Thus are young men taught chicane and young women 
made to look leniently on fraudulent processes, lightly 
questioning with quiet conscience ways which bring wealth. 

And fathers and sons and servitors walk the street 
but they walk not in honor. They swell with apparent 
pride, for their presence means money, but they are not 
proud. They throw up their heads among clean men, but 
they do not feel clean. With brazen face and craven heart 
they move among their fellows knowing that all men know 
them for what they are. 

Sad it is to see the gifts of providence so perverted ; sad 
to see young men of generous impulse taught the abhorrent 
doctrine that the ways to success are by devious paths; 
saddest of all, when a youth of honorable instincts first 
feels a father's baseness. 

For the truth stands blazing there, plain as the path- 
way to hell, that young men are brought up by their 
fathers to a course of infamy ; that they have provided for 
them an unwritten code in which crimes are graded, re- 
turns to be in proportion to the amount involved and risk 
of detection; that they are instructed as sound business 



218 RETROSPECTION 

doctrine that to steal from the people is not stealing, that 
to swindle the government is not so bad as to swindle a 
corporation, that to swindle a corporation is not so bad as 
to swindle a private individual, and that to swindle an in- 
dividual who is a stranger, or a poor man, is not so bad 
as to swindle a partner, or brother, or father. Whence 
comes it all, this terrible American defection, nay this world 
wide wickedness? These men were not so made in the be- 
ginning ; they were not so marred in a day. 

In the earlier years of the Republic the scantier bless- 
ings of providence were more fully appreciated than by 
the inflow through the opened flood-gates later ; we were not 
so far removed from slavery then as now ; we held in more 
abhorrent remembrance the grasping King John, the 
prurient Charles, the imbecile George, while Valley Forge 
and Germantown were affairs of yesterday. The people 
thanked God every day; most of them meant it. Most of 
their descendants lived virtuous lives. 

Gradually there came a change. With the expansion 
of territory came an expansion of pride. We strode about 
Europe boasting of what we had done and were going to 
do. We took from Mexico the California country; we 
gathered gold and scattered it abroad; we invited all the 
world to come and participate in our good fortune; we 
would lift them up, surely they would not pull us down. 

But they did pull us down. They pulled us down, they 
and our own native greed, until our foremost men became 
high-priests of criminality, until their families and friends 
became inoculated of evil. Wealth brings power, which all 
covet. Power implies distinction, which all love; hence 
the longing for riches even though accompanied with dis- 
honor. 

It was then that competitive individualism merged into 
monopoly and aggregated capital seized and appropriated 
for the further extension of its power all the natural re- 
sources within its reach. 



EVOLUTION OF HIGH CRIME 219 

Development of crime came with the development of 
wealth; from increased hunger for wealth came laxity of 
principles and recklessness as to the methods of obtaining 
it. As cupidity increased rectitude became strained, and 
personal dishonesty followed public corruption. Senti- 
ments of sinister import were freely discussed and openly 
avowed, and social ethics tolerated such as a short time 
before would have been deemed little less than diabolical. 
Equality before the law, for which principle our fore- 
fathers had so lately fought, was openly repudiated. 

Aliens of still lower grade kept coming in greater num- 
bers with each succeeding decade, and standards of morality 
continued to fall. Avarice increased as integrity di- 
minished. Still all through the first century of re- 
publican life by far the greater part of the people of the 
United States were honest, conscientious, and patriotic. It 
was not so much an increase of crime among Americans, 
aside from aliens, as a shifting of the criminal class, a 
parting of the' ways, some sinking into the depths, others 
rising to the surface. Hence high crime and low crime, 
the most powerful criminal class by far being at the top. 

One of the most remarkable phases attending human 
development during the last half century has been this 
evolution of high crime. Not that crime in high places 
has hitherto been uncommon, or that it has not too often 
escaped punishment, but that now for the first time we 
find a considerable part of the men of wealth and intelli- 
gence of the community openly advocating the punishment 
of the poor for crime, but not the punishment of the rich. 
Search the sacred books of all nations and no such reversal 
of the commands of the decalogue can be found. Nowhere 
do we hear in the recitation even of the crudest tenets, the 
poor shall not kill or steal, but only the rich. And of a 
surety we know that no government, no religion, no so- 
ciety could for a moment stand secure upon such a founda- 
tion. It is incredible that sane members of a latter-day 



220 RETROSPECTION 

community should be found to uphold such a cloctrine. 
Yet we know that such a doctrine exists, and that thousands 
give it their assent, tacitly if not openly. Why? Why 
should men of average intelligence and some modicum of 
morality submit to such a monstrous sentiment? 

The world was young a hundred years ago, our republi- 
can world, and comparatively pure. The words which 
stood for patriotism, integrity, and civic purity held some 
significance with many, while for that which we now call 
graft no word had yet been coined. 

Village life was held to be better than life in the city 
where centred all wickedness. But now in this present 
year of our glorious development we find in almost every 
town and county masters of evil forces, promoters of evil 
schemes, with hearts as black as Burr's, and hands as foul 
as Arnold 's, who every day murder morality and sell them- 
selves and the finer sense of their sons and daughters, — 
sell themselves and their country for gold. 

When the civil war came there was yet an unsubdued 
space intervening between the two frontiers, which was 
thought to be worthless, but was later found to be exceed- 
ingly fertile in bringing forth crops of millionaires, cattle 
kings, railroad dictators, forest despots, mining lords, and 
even agricultural barons. The vast wealth stored up by 
nature under bleak and barren coverings hungry capital- 
ists seized with avidity. Here was a new and fertile field 
in which to swindle the government. 

More especially the profession of high crime proper, 
as it exists to-day, began with this war, with the horde 
of swindlers who sprang forward to supply the army with 
shoddy clothes and rotten food, with the horde of con- 
tractors, lately honest dealers, but too quickly turned ras- 
cals with the turn of the times. So that it became fash- 
ionable to cheat, even to giving the army worthless arms 
on entering battle if the profit were enough. 

Building railroads with government subsidies and pri- 
vate subscriptions afforded too fine an opportunity to rob 



EVOLUTION OF HIGH CRIME 221 

both government and people to be slighted. Then there 
were land frauds and water frauds, timber oil and iron 
frauds, and a hundred others where the wealthy sought 
to become more wealthy by illegally combining and crush- 
ing the poor. In the matter of road-making, school-houses, 
court-houses, and other public work the grossest frauds 
are even at this day perpetrated by eliminating certain 
parts of the work or substituting poorer material than that 
specified in the contract, all under the eyes of the stupid or 
indifferent public. As sings the poet in his psalm of the 
slums, 

Lives of rich men oft remind us 
We can make our lives like swine. 

Since high crime has assumed such large proportions 
among a class of wealthy and influential men hitherto 
deemed honorable, the science of criminology becomes an 
interesting study. 

Thus we find the criminal class transferred from the 
lower to the upper regions, from the nethermost to the 
most exalted social strata, from the crowded tenements of 
the filthiest quarters to the homes of the wealthy in the 
atmosphere of the parks and along the spacious boulevards. 

For if we weigh and measure fairly this criminal class, 
estimating it as well by the magnitude of the transactions 
as by the numbers engaged and the demoralizing effects 
upon the nation, it is plain that the honor of the name be- 
longs not to the poor and lowly who steal a pittance to 
escape starvation, nor to the pickpockets and burglars of 
the city's purlieus, who presently find their way to the 
state prison, but to the rich and prosperous who steal their 
millions, beggar whole communities, appropriate the na- 
tion's resources, illegally combine to crush competition, 
and all that vast horde of respectable rapscallions who 
never see prison-wall or feel the hangman's halter. New 
York's Bowery and Chinatown have their crime school; 
what have New York's Wall street and Fifth avenue? Is 



222 RETROSPECTION 

it because high crime in the United States does not need 
a university that Mr. Carnegie has founded no such in- 
stitution at Washington? 

In this fin de siecle epidemic of high crime a sort of 
insanity seized the money-makers. The high-crime de- 
fender of high crime does not regard with favor crimes 
committed against himself; he does not like it if the clerk 
he has taught to steal from others steals from him; he 
ravos if the government which he robs with impunity will 
not protect him from robbery by others. 

In aggressive business circles the civic conscience in re- 
lation to industrial life is for the most part a thing of the 
past. When we ask why men still steal from the govern- 
ment who will not steal from each other what sort of 
answer do we get? 

''Can't you see the difference?" 

"No." 

' 'Well I can." 

It is natural for some men to take whatever they want 
that is within their reach, either openly by strategy or 
secretly by stealth. One way may be as criminal as the 
other, but the punishment is not the same. One operator 
may be called a great financier, the other a miserable thief. 
Hence the wise men will avoid the way to small results 
with large penalties, and cling to the way to great results 
with no penalties. The system has been many times tried, 
to punish the poor and let the rich go free, but it never 
would work for any length of time. Feudalism practised 
it but feudalism faded away. Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome 
tried it and failed; the Spanish and French nobility and 
the English Georges attempted it but had to give it up. 

Singular that men of such ability should imagine that 
they can usurp the prerogatives of the American people, 
thrust aside the sons of those who fought at Bunker hill 
and Gettysburg, and while running their railroads run 
the government as well. Strange that they cannot better 



EVOLUTION OF HIGH CRIME 223 

read the signs of the times and know that such a state of 
things can no longer exist. 

High crime justice like high crime journalism is made 
to fit the occasion. Even the family adopts it, serving it 
up for breakfast, associating the lessons with bible readings 
and family prayers. Yet every such precept of that father 
brings upon him the contempt of the son and the humilia- 
tion of the daughter. 

High crime carries with it high society, and both carry 
wealth. Without wealth the high criminal and the high 
social personage would be low indeed; hence the constant 
struggle for riches, at any cost. 

Woman plays her part in the evolution of high crime. 
There is no one woman in particular, no one type of woman 
that appears conspicuous. But all women, or any woman 
who smiles on rascality, who receives in her house persons 
of tainted reputation, looks with lenient eyes on ill-gotten 
gains, or aids and abets crooked ways, in so far as she thus 
lends her influence to criminality is criminal. 

It is a test of feminine fibre that few of the gentler sex 
will meet, for wrong is uncertain and women are indulgent, 
which only intensifies the situation and makes it worse. 

Before great wealth became so common and standards 
of living were simpler the disadvantages attending wealth 
were less, and the attitude of woman less fictitious. She 
did right because it was right, not because the opposite 
course would be disreputable. Under the present relations 
she must do the same, that is if she would retain her former 
high standard of purity. 

The development of our country may be distinctly 
marked by three transformations following the revolution- 
ary war, the civil war, and the dark age of graft. For a 
period after independence uprightness grew apace. Good 
men ruled, for the most part wisely and well. The people 
were intensely patriotic, and fairly philanthropic. A 
moderate immigration of a somewhat decent class increased 
rather than retarded progress. 



224 RETROSPECTION 

Even in the maelstrom set in motion by the evil in- 
fluences of the civil war, intensified by economic develop- 
ment incident to the application of steam and electricity 
and the mad rush for wealth which followed, appears the 
spirit of purification, apart from which the social structure 
of a people cannot long exist. Yet for a time vice grew 
faster than virtue, the bloom unfolding from the caverns 
of iniquity. 

From yet another point of view we may watch the 
growth of the monster. Up to the middle of the last cen- 
tury corporate capital was largely in life insurance, in- 
creasing from one million in 1843 to one hundred and 
twenty-five millions in 1867. "Wall street was commercial 
rather than financial, the importation of dry goods occupy- 
ing the more substantial firms. 

Losing the profitable trade of the south through the 
civil war the Wall street merchants took to exporting 
United States bonds, of which were put out in six years 
over two billions of dollars worth. Thus these merchants 
became private bankers and Wall street the financial centre 
of the nation. The advent of trusts and corporate securi- 
ties date from 1879, and the Juggernaut car of Standard 
Oil wheeled into course with its new business methods and 
morals to the debasement of commercial honor and in- 
tegrity. 

Hitherto railroad bonds were in bad odor, but as some 
portions of trunk lines were taken up, double tracked, 
and improved, values increased, trusts were formed, com- 
peting lines were made one by exchange of securities, and 
the railways of the country fell into the hands of monop- 
olists. Then followed the steel trust, corporate mergers, 
and the life insurance frauds. 

After the war a period of unexampled prosperity set 
in. Population spread out over the rich valley of the 
Mississippi and beyond. New states were organized, and 
new business methods devised. 

And here we may consider a little further who and 



EVOLUTION OF HIGH CRIME 225 

what we are. A system of government good enough for 
good men but too weak for the vicious, administered by 
practised politicians, self-seeking aliens easily bribed by 
money or influence and always hungry for office, and whose 
chief concern when in office is to keep themselves there 
rather than attend to matters affecting the welfare of the 
people, the rule being party before the people, the people 
before principle, and self before all. 

Behold our courts of law, where justice may sometimes 
be hammered out at no small cost of time and money from 
iron rule and stale precedent — though too largely courts 
of injustice where only the poor are punished, rich crim- 
inals escaping through endless webs of quirks and quibbles, 
all manipulated by professionals of small conscience skilled 
in legal legerdemain; judges steeped in forms and conven- 
tionalities listening to evidence with one ear open to their 
own interests or prejudices; juries of stupid mien and 
wooden personalities, whose sluggish intellect works in 
grooves, and each of whom finds it "always his luck to 
get on a jury with eleven damned fools." Since this sys- 
tem of court procedure and miscarriage of justice has con- 
tinued from the days of King John and his charter, might 
we not now, with some of our referendums and things 
secure a befitting change? 

Judging from the signs of the times it is a question 
how long the influence of the better class of the community 
will continue to predominate. There is a marked tendency 
on the part of the lovers of evil to degrade society and 
bring the community down to their level while the aspirants 
for something better strive as hard to improve and elevate. 

Many of the leading newspapers joined the confederacy 
of crime because of the profit. In a burst of eloquent 
blackguardism, one of these refined leaders of public opin- 
ion exclaims "Damn morality, give us prosperity!" which 
quite plainly shows the quality of public opinion he leads, 
or is led by. 



226 RETROSPECTION 

As to the attitude and influence of the clergy in the 
repression of crime in high places too much cannot be 
said in their praise. It requires nerve, as well as faith 
and holiness, to say to one who liberally supports the church 
and devoutly attends its sacred ministrations, as Nathan 
said to David, ' ' Thou art the man ! ' ' Wherefore we are in- 
clined to regard pityingly a weak-kneed brother so 
wretchedly circumstanced. 

Like so many others, such a clergyman fears for him- 
self. His predatory flock is strong; he must consider his 
wife and little ones, for he is human. Willingly he de- 
nounces sin, but not the sinner. It is not a pleasant thing 
to say, but the truth asserts it, that in the great conflict 
now being waged between public righteousness and the 
sins of the rich the church is not always on the side of 
purity and good morals. 

Religion is not taken seriously by the twentieth cen- 
tury ; its votaries profess with their lips but deny by their 
actions. The timid preacher of the word too often shirks 
his responsibilities. 

' ' The pulpit is no place for politics, ' ' saith such an one. 
Where then is the place for politics? Is religion so unap- 
proachable a thing that it can take no part in the most im- 
portant affairs relating to mankind that you, my dear man 
of God, should relegate the question of government to the 
saloons and the haunts of the demagogues? Surely to dis- 
cuss the vital issues of life were better than forever to 
drone over Moses and the prophets and repeat prayers 
stereotyped by superstition hundreds of years ago. But 
talk is idle. Such a man in the pulpit feels that he must 
preach to please the pews. He still holds his place among 
the so-called servants of Christ who should be found in the 
temple casting out the money changers. Not a word of 
warning or rebuke, not a word which might offend the ear 
of the pious grafter who passes the contribution plate and 
serves at the holy communion. How, then, should the 



EVOLUTION OF HIGH CRIME 227 

people be expected to take seriously such a church since 
its own minister does not? 

Thus we see how some clergymen as well as some of 
the men who are in trade, the facile merchant and the 
bloodless banker, whose customers are money even though 
they be not men, all alike swell the number that live and 
flourish by high crime. Let us be thankful that so few 
of our spiritual guides are of this stamp. 

Monopolists of such a sort and character there are as 
the franchise manipulating and public-utilities men who 
take the people's money from them, forced by threats of 
discrimination, and employ it to grind them under the heel 
of a commercial despotism hitherto unknown in the annals 
of trade; or of one who says "All the oil is mine, the oil 
gathered by beneficent nature through countless ages in 
the reservoirs of the earth for the use of all born upon 
the earth so long as the earth shall stand, all, all is mine, 
by my sharpened faculties I swear it, I swear I will get it, 
and with what I get I and my cohorts shall get and control 
yet more, even the very souls of men." Another says 
practically the same of iron, as do others of coal, of timber, 
of the falling water, of food-yielding products, and there 
is one clique who would even be content with the whole of 
Alaska. 

But though finance, philosophy, and religion all fail 
to give us concrete assurance of the future, yet we must 
not lose heart, for the skies are at this moment bright with 
promise in the form of redeemed cities and regenerated 
states. Even the country towns, once innocent of evil 
but later grown rank in corruption, and boastful of their 
big bad men, their bosses and their rings, like any of the 
larger cities of Sodom, even these are becoming purged of 
their wickedness and their evil ones made afraid. 

In so far as a system of legal reform is perfected and 
carried forward Utopia indeed has come, and American 



228 RETROSPECTION 

cities from cesspools of corruption may become the clean 
dwelling-places of a redeemed race. Under it there is no 
reason why the people should not have the sort of govern- 
men they want. If they prefer cleanliness and decency, if 
they abhor the curse of labor leaders, if they revolt at the 
discrimination of judges and prosecuting attorneys be- 
tween high and low crime, they must choose their leaders 
accordingly. If the people rule they will get exactly what 
they want and deserve, be it good or bad. 

The evolution of high crime is arrested. In a thousand 
municipalities we see alight the lamps of transformation 
disclosing new birth and new being. The fundamental 
forces of honesty and morality which alone can save from 
anarchy are again appearing in forms attractive to the eye 
and hopeful to the heart. The exploitation of national re- 
sources for individual benefit is also a thing of the past, 
and the time will come when individual holdings of any 
sort of wealth will be limited, not upon socialistic prin- 
ciples, but from the evolution of common-sense. 

Meanwhile let us use a little more discrimination in 
choosing our chief magistrate. 

The rulers of nations have not always been men of de- 
cency. From the days of those divinely appointed over a 
chosen people, who mostly did that which was evil in the 
sight of the Lord, all through the lives of ancient Asia 
and modern Europe, whether Pharaohs of Egypt or Caesars 
of Rome, or of later times called William or Henry, Charles 
Louis or Edward, comparatively few decent persons can 
be found among them. 

Strange that men who are so many should permit rulers 
who are so few to degrade them, to grind them into the 
dust; strange that we, citizens of this high-grade republic, 
with all our learning and refinement, with all our wealth 
and opportunity, ever seeking the best, that we should rest 
supinely under the misrule of demagogues and the spawn 
of low aliens. 

Even for our president we rarely choose the best man, 



EVOLUTION OF HIGH CRIME 229 

but rather the fittest. Fittest for what? For reconcilia- 
tion and compromise. 

And yet so strong within us is love of home and country 
that we would prefer our worst president to the best 
European monarch. Better than to return to the super- 
stitions and mummeries of kingcraft, that tax labor and 
pile up a never-to-be-paid national debt to support an 
idle aristocracy and the ever increasing relatives of royalty, 
we would return to the realm of apedom and cease calling 
ourselves men. 

The new nationalism promulgated by Theodore Roose- 
velt carries with it a new code of commercial ethics, a new 
standard for civic decency. First citizen of the world, 
though not a professional reformer, no one ever equalled 
him in reforms; though not a professional states crafts- 
man, few ever excelled him in the management of public 
affairs. 

Three great revolutions were achieved by the person- 
ality of three of our presidents: by George Washington a 
political revolution, by Abraham Lincoln a social revolu- 
tion, by Theodore Roosevelt a moral revolution. Though 
our country still remains steeped in political and financial 
pollution, the work of Roosevelt, the reformer, in its in- 
fluence encircles the earth, and is as lasting as time. Do 
not the people of California feel the effects every day, 
notably in late victories for the right in the state reforms 
by Hiram Johnson? 

Roosevelt made possible the work of Heney, Heney made 
possible the work of Johnson. Roosevelt made possible 
a grand career for Taft, but Taft lacked the penetration 
to see or take advantage of it. 

Probably never so many of the American people suf- 
fered so great a disappointment in the administration of 
any one of our presidents as in the case of Mr. Taft. 
Coming immediately after Roosevelt, with all his promises 
to his predecessor and to the people who elected him fresh 
in their minds and hearts, they waited, watching for a 



230 RETROSPECTION 

sign, until hope died within them as they saw him with 
his ponderous flesh and sickly smile sink into a quagmire 
of broken promises and incompetency. 

His narrowness of mind was seen in his many petty 
prejudices, and his lack of judgment in his illogical atti- 
tude in regard to leading questions, and the persistent in- 
fliction upon the government of persons of damaged repu- 
tation which cost the nation much time and money to keep 
fairly whitewashed. In all of which he displayed the wil- 
fulness and petulance of a child, as also in his vetoes like 
that of the Arizona statehood bill, in which he displayed 
a brutal indifference to the rights and wishes of a free and 
independent people acting wholly within their rights. 

One might expect, as the higher circles of office-seeking 
are approached, to see less of that insatiable greed for office 
witnessed on lower levels; but in the desire to rule selfish- 
ness has no limit. 

Somewhat significant as showing the ever shifting 
centre of political and intellectual development is the fact 
that not until Virginia had given to the republic seven 
presidents, all of them before 1850, did Ohio come for- 
ward with her six presidents, all attaining office after 
1868. North Carolina began with Andrew Jackson, who 
was followed from his state by James K. Polk and Andrew 
Johnson, of none of whom are we particularly proud, the 
last rather than the first being physically and mentally a 
typical citizen of the state. In politics likewise are marked 
distinctions. Low officialism in the south is liable to be 
always dark, while the policemen and pot-house politicians 
of the northern cities smell strongly Celtic. 

Jackson's instincts were forceful, his ethics brutal, 
the moral sense was lacking; as we should expect, he 
was among the first to set up Mexican claims and urge 
reprisals. 

Massachusetts gave only the two Adamses, and New 
York but three men, the last alone worth counting; and 
he is still young enough, and prophet priest and king 



EVOLUTION OF HIGH CRIME 231 

enough to accomplish the purposes for which he was 
created. 

As to the relative merits of our presidents, that is a 
question upon which no two persons will agree. We all 
know that George Washington was a good and a great 
man, though by diligently digging some few peccadillos 
may be found not mentioned by the admiring biographer. 

The Adamses were well up to the Boston standard, 
which surely is high enough, the first and greatest merit 
being that they were of Boston. Though not as much 
talked about as Jefferson, Madison and Monroe made good 
presidents. The list is filled in with a pretty poor lot 
down to Lincoln, whose name none can mention except 
with reverence. Worst of all next to Taft was Andrew 
Johnson. Grant was a good fighter — when he had the 
largest army and the most money; but the greatest soldier 
and the most pathetic figure of either army was Robert E. 
Lee, whose efficiency and sublime courage held him up a 
hero in the face of a superior force and under the most 
trying disadvantages. As a man, naturally, being a suc- 
cessful general, Grant had been greatly overrated, as his 
career both before and after the war fully shows. He has 
yet further to be several times magnified before he can 
properly fill the empty space in his monument. New 
Yorkers themselves admit that his tomb on Riverside drive 
is somewhat overwhelming when compared with like trib- 
utes to the memory of Lincoln. 

As to the rest there is little to be said, least of all as 
to Hayes, Arthur, and Taft, but the time will come if in- 
deed it is not already here, when Theodore Roosevelt will 
be named the greatest and best of all our chief magis- 
trates next after Washington and Lincoln. 

The south and east have given forth their presidents, 
Carolina, Virginia, and New York; also the mid-continent. 
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; would it not be well some- 
time to try the Pacific coast from the new crop of patriots 
that is coming on? 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE DARK AGE OF GRAFT 

THE period of our west-American history from 1870 
to 1910, that is to say, from the advent of Collis P. 
Huntington to the advent of Hiram W. Johnson, will ever 
remain memorable as marking a thraldom and a deliver- 
ance. For the first time in our brief career we behold 
the dethronement of American manhood, the debauchery 
of American morals. For the first time we find Americans 
afraid, unnerved, not by the presence of a foreign foe, but 
because of betrayal by their own people, by their friends 
and neighbors, from whom they expected aid and good- 
fellowship in the development of a new commonwealth 
along the old lines of fidelity and integrity. 

All was hope and joy in anticipation of the benefits to 
accrue from the completed railway, the railway which had 
been built by the people, for the people, which had been 
built with the people's money and credit, with money 
given by the people of the west and credit obtained from 
the government through their representatives at Washing- 
ton. The work had been entrusted to ostensibly reputable 
men doing business in Sacramento, and the work accom- 
plished, the railway was now to bring them good fortune 
and nearer relationship with all the world. When these 
Sacramento men, hitherto in very moderate circumstances, 
suddenly became rich, the people knew they were betrayed. 
Had the railway men simply pocketed the people's money, 
and secured to themselves individually all the profits and 
peculations to accrue from hasty construction as a war 
measure, it would have been bad enough. No wonder 

232 



THE DARK AGE OF GRAFT 233 

then that when they saw their old associates turn traitors, 
and found themselves tricked, the promised advantages 
turned to ways and means for further extortions, they be- 
came despondent. 

Iron rules were made by the now exultant railroad 
men ; the merchants ' books should always be open to them ; 
freight rates were graded, and the most favored shippers 
must not only give up the clipper-ship and the steamer by 
the Isthmus routes, but must not order for or sell goods 
to any who did not give their entire transportation busi- 
ness to the railroad. 

Credits at the east were curtailed, owing partly to the 
shortened time for getting goods to the western coast, and 
partly to the return of government to specie payment. 
Intimidation was the spirit of the new regime. Those 
who had proved obdurate during the abject efforts of the 
railroad men to secure favors were now remembered, and 
the delinquent towns and individuals well punished. Con- 
temptuous treatment became a mark of merit, and a civil 
answer was scarcely to be expected from a servant of the 
monopoly. 

The public press was bribed or subsidized so far as 
practicable; such journals as declined to sell themselves 
were if possible destroyed. The Sacramento Union, the 
ablest and most influential newspaper on the coast, was for- 
bidden the use of the Central Pacific trains, and so was 
ruined, later to be bought for a song by an agent of the 
octopus. 

The whole country was under a cloud. Business fell 
off; manufactures declined; merchants failed, many giv- 
ing up further effort and taking their departure. Want 
came to the working-man, who could find no employment, 
even at a low wage, his family often lacking food. Posses- 
sion was taken by the railroad men of the courts and of 
the government; subservient tools were placed in office, 
the ablest lawyers were employed to demonstrate the law- 
lessness of law before facile courts of law, and so the rail- 



234 RETROSPECTION 

road soon had the country under its heel. Values fell; 
sales of reil-estate, inflated in anticipation of an advance, 
could not be effected; financial distress overspread the 
land, and California lapsed into a state of humiliation and 
despair. 

It would not have been so with the men of '56; they 
would have found some way out of it; it was their custom 
to find a way out of dilemmas. The men who made Chicago 
would have found a way out of it. It would have been 
wrong, of course, to tear up the track and hang the big 
four, however great the temptation. There were other 
ways for those that had the intelligence and nerve to em- 
ploy them. 

Thus came to California the Dark Age of Graft, over 
the Plains, over the Great Divide, over the Desert and the 
Sierra, by the Union Pacific, by the Central Pacific, before 
ever the word of accursed distinction was invented, or 
lessons in the art had become common elsewhere. To the 
immaculate four, Huntington, Hopkins, Stanford, and 
Crocker belong the honor of its introduction. Where these 
adepts studied, they and Satanus only know. 

A rare text-book of the time was the Credit Mobilier 
of Paris. Fremont and his alleged Mariposa mine became 
entangled there, and the man would have been sent to the 
Bastile as a royal fraud if peradventure that edifice had 
not been closed for repairs. 

Such of the Credit Mobilier as was not required by 
M. de Lesseps for his Panama canal scheme the Union 
Pacific brought to America, where it served its manager 
the same scurvy trick it always plays upon its votaries, 
only he was first disgraced and then killed by it, 
whereas Fremont could not be killed by disgrace, nor yet 
the immaculate four. 

It is difficult to disgrace a man with forty millions in 
his pocket, even though the millions were stolen, and the 
people enslaved, bound in fetters forged out of their own 



THE DARK AGE OF GRAFT 235 

money; even though the millions were employed in elect- 
ing governors, buying legislatures, bribing senators, and 
insulting and humiliating citizens; or perhaps in erecting 
churches and hospitals not for the glory of God, but for 
their own glory, and as a sop to Cerberus; in founding a 
college wherein young people may forever be taught to 
honor infamy; in building for vulgar display a Nob hill 
palace, which brings neither honor nor comfort, and soon 
to be licked up by charitable flames; in buying a foreign 
title for an adopted daughter; in supplying an old wife 
the money wherewith to buy a young husband; in suits at 
law, employing the law to defeat the law, electing to 
office men pledged to defy the law while swearing to 
execute it, all interlarded with their own lives and per- 
juries such as would put Ananias to blush; in spiteful 
revenges and personal brawls, as when one of the wives 
raised high her spiritualistic nose at another of the wives, 
thereby infuriating the husband to such an extent that he 
drives out the man who said he would rather be president 
of the Central Pacific than president of the United States; 
now no longer should he be president of this band of rob- 
bers, whereupon the husband of the plain wife with the 
ethereal sub-soul is retired, and the husband of the beauti- 
ful snubbed one reigns in his stead. 

Nor does the feud end there. In the flaming pages of 
the Argonaut, under the virulent pen of Frank Pixley, 
with classic vituperation Leland Stanford is excoriated 
for a year or two, until there is little of him left but his 
saintly visage and Palo Alto horses — excoriations evidently 
pleasing to Mr. Pixley, though done for a consideration, 
for such a consideration as to make the Pixley pockets 
bulge with the money of Huntington, who sat happily 
upon his prostrate foe forever after. 

It was truly considerate in Plutus to raise up a man 
like Harriman to succeed Huntington. Harriman was a 
genius of another order. Huntington's genius was a de- 
velopment, Harriman 's was an inspiration. Both were 



236 RETROSPECTION 

of the Napoleonic order, the latter especially. These two 
railroad men — three out of the big four counting for 
nothing — one following the other, ran side by side the rail- 
road and the government, the people meanwhile being held 
in a state of cowed subserviency. 

This for the western country. At the east arose oil 
men, who greased the railroads and strangled the other 
oil men; iron men gathered up the other iron men, reg- 
ulated the tariff, multiplied their former values by ten, 
and posted their names everywhere as the great givers. 
The others pecuniarily interested in these operations as 
owners of property or participators in the profits were 
members of high society, of churches and charities, with 
every pretense to respectability. 

Never of themselves would the astute four, or any one 
of them, have thought of a railroad over the high Sierra 
had not an engineer, one T. D. Judah, called their atten- 
tion to it, and assured them of its practicability. He had 
been over the ground, and w T ould make a further survey 
for a share in the enterprise, the promise of which being 
readily given and as promptly repudiated when the work 
was done. Nor would the opportunities for wholesale 
robbery have been given them but for the stress of the 
civil war. 

This war with its attendant evil influences, as we have 
seen, was the beginning of the reign of high crime in the 
United States. It came in with army contracts and the 
overland railroad, and has been growing in intensity ever 
since. The same infamous tactics which yielded such rich 
plunder in manipulating the Central Pacific were em- 
ployed by others, as imperfect construction, fraudulent 
contract and finance companies, attended by the burning 
of such account books and papers as would give evidence 
in court against them, with easy forgetfulness and facile 
perjury. 

And these evil examples were passed on to posterity. 



THE DARK AGE OF GRAFT 237 

There are in every state in the union, in California not 
more than elsewhere, sons and successors of the original 
grafters made by the war, who never in their lives have 
drawn an honest breath, whose thoughts are ever on 
cheating and overreaching, in which accomplishments those 
of their subordinates who become most efficient are ac- 
credited the highest honors and rewards. Instead of 
obedience to the law young men were taught to subvert 
the law, to control legislation, and wrest from the people 
the management of their own economic life. Selfishness 
is encouraged, alliance with special interests and privilege 
sought, greed fostered, patriotism ridiculed, and the rights 
of others lightly regarded. 

There were other railroad builders over the Mississippi 
way besides the Union Pacific from whom the illustrious 
four might learn the tricks of the trade, and there were 
the good men who represented us at Washington, wearing 
themselves out studying the welfare of the people, and in 
securing their own reelection — these knew a thing or two, 
for it was now a full decade since the opening of the war 
when the high grafters began in earnest to ply their pro- 
fession. And the rule of these gentlemen, our good neigh- 
bors the patriotic four, who stole, and lied, and tricked, 
and perjured themselves so skilfully, or had always some 
one at hand to do it for them, extended throughout all 
the California country and lasted four decades, until 
Hiram Johnson came and brought to a close, let us hope 
forever, our Dark Age of Graft. 

Forty years! It is a long time. Anglo-California at 
this writing is not yet sixty-three years old, and forty of 
those years given over to the tyranny of bad men, leaving 
only the fifteen years interregnum following the dethrone- 
ment of crime by the grand tribunal of 1856. Truly we 
are a pusillanimous lot ! Worse than the children of Israel 
with thrir forty years wandering in the desert, their 
quails and manna, their winnings and bickerings and golden 
calf and ten commandments, and never a spark of man- 



23S RETROSPECTION 

hood; yet they had their Lord God and Moses, while we 
had only these four foul fish. 

Forty years! It was a long time for a free and en- 
lightened people to remain subservient under a disgrace- 
ful despotism. Merchants and manufacturers were cowed 
into submission while the economic interests of the entire 
country were paralyzed. 

We have seen in the evolution of high crime something 
of when and where and how this abominable state of things 
originated and was thrust upon us. Going back fifty years 
we find on our hands a great civil war, which breeds 
swindlers as cesspools breed gnats. Then we prostitute 
the privileges of our high citizenship by admitting to the 
franchise four or five millions of lately emancipated 
African slaves and a horde of riffraff from Europe. Then 
we give into the hands of a few grasping men a large 
share of the natural wealth and resources of the country, 
the forests, the mines, the coal and iron and oil, robbing 
the people at large to enrich the few. Frightened by the 
depredations in Pacific waters of the Confederate steamer 
Alabama, the first overland railroad was hurried forward 
at any cost, while the builders were buried under a deluge 
of government bonds, land grants, and contributions from 
the people. 

It was the work of our pet octopus, the four-armed 
cuttle-fish, who built for us the Central Pacific, and while 
acknowledging its benefits and inflictions we must mark 
the advent of dishonor attending it. 

Dating from 1861, the influence of these four men for 
evil, with that of their successors, increased as the years 
passed by. One of them, unscrupulous, bold, fearing 
neither God nor man, dominated the others, who were not 
too stupid to learn rascality. Huntington commanded a 
respect which could not be accorded to Leland Stanford, 
a man of bodily presence, made up of pose and piety, with 
Asiatic eyes placed near together, and which rolled heaven- 
ward in hypocritical ecstasy whenever he wished to be 



THE DARK AGE OF GRAFT 239 

impressive — he was of the spiritualistic persuasion, and 
he now dwells among the stars. In default of an heir he 
-gave his money to found a university, which was to make 
high crime respectable, and which act was used in his 
defense at Washington, whereupon a senator arose and 
made reply, ''We do not want our children educated with 
stolen money." 

But from the large attendance at the institution, and 
the pains taken by the faculty upon all occasions to preach 
political purity, it would seem that the gentleman from 
California was mistaken. 

Thus became formulated in the minds of men as a 
principle of business ethics evasion of the law and outwit- 
ting a competitor, quickly to become breaking of the law 
and the crushing of competition; the term good business 
becoming significant of criminality, a manufacturer as 
merciless as his machinery, a citizen studying the law 
under whose protection he lived to see how best he could 
break it and save his own precious skin. Good business, 
not as of old the result of application, thrift, and fair 
dealing, but rather of false-swearing, theft, cheating, and 
overreaching. God save us! If this is good business what 
then is bad business? 

Well, good or bad, it is the sort of business we find to- 
day closely allied to crime, such crime as sends a poor 
man to prison. We find it closely allied to wealth, few of 
the great fortunes that are made being free from it. We 
find it closely allied to high society, closely intimate with 
high living, luxury, and extravagance. 

In the eastern United States, I am sorry to say, it had 
already come to pass that somewhat of the former prestige 
of the business men was lost, and it would seem that they 
have not now, all of them, the best reputation in the world 
for honesty in their dealings. Our foreign competitors 
say that we adulterate, give short weights and poor quality. 
If this is true it is very wrong; besides it does not pay. 



240 RETROSPECTION 

Is it wise, in promulgating a course of action to turn 
aside and mark out for ourselves a winding way worse 
than the winding way of those whose ethics are governed 
wholly by expediency? 

Benedict Arnold doubtless thought he was making a 
good bargain when he sold his country, and Aaron Burr 
regarded his reputation enhanced by his duel with Alex- 
ander Hamilton. Major Andre's captors may have been, 
tempted by his offer of money, though history does not 
say so. I am sure Abraham Ruef would have regarded 
the offer with disdain as not large enough. Lincoln's 
assassin thought to avenge the south while bringing upon 
the south dire destruction in thus killing its best friend. 
We can but notice how little good bad money does to the 
cormorants who gather it, or to their progeny if they 
leave any. To us it may appear that those who thus sold 
their souls for pay, though receiving therefor all that they 
were worth, made a poor bargain of it. 

We can readily understand why the Southern Pacific 
railway entered politics so early and fought so long and 
vigorously for the supremacy, and why the Santa Fe and 
Western Pacific railways did not. These two doubtless 
have sins enough to answer for, but not of the kind that re- 
quires a subversion of the government to save them from 
the penitentiary. The beneficiary of no unlawful policies, 
the Western Pacific comes to California and attends to its 
own business, with no attempt at debauching the govern- 
ment, having no rascalities to cover in this quarter. 

During this period, pregnant of evil, the character of 
the population underwent a change. While retaining a 
dominant influence in public affairs the Anglo-American 
element declined in numbers, the loss being more than 
replaced by lower grades of humanity from Europe who 
cared nothing for Americans or American institutions. 
A new Christianity was preached from the pulpits, a new 
doctrine of human rights was practised in the courts, a 
new code of commercial ethics was installed in business 



THE DARK AGE OF GRAFT 241 

circles, if not in words direct then in words and actions 
indirect. Newspapers scurrilized good men for doing good. 
And of the church, it may with some show of reason be 
said that it has scarcely proved itself in all cases that vital 
force for good which is claimed for it by its patrons. 

We might hope to see American character reformed, and 
the earlier influences reestablished in the coming genera- 
tion, but not while parents are teaching their children the 
tricks of trade, how to circumvent the right and over- 
throw the efforts of good men. 

What did they teach, these new instructors of the 
credit mobilier school, so lately of us, grocer, hardware 
merchant, governor; what new codes of industrial ethics 
did they bring over the mountains, they and their con- 
freres ? 

They taught us how to falsify accounts, how to falsify 
weights and measures, how to adulterate and deceive, how 
to water stocks and get up sham dividends, how to sell a 
worthless mine and build a $200,000 court house for 
$400,000; how to bribe without being detected and swear 
falsely without being arrested, how to apply road-money 
to electioneering purposes, how to beguile or pacify courts 
and judges so as to make the practice of the law defeat 
the purposes of the law. Later in this school were taught 
theft, perjury, and murder pure and simple. 

And the result — a few brief days of fatuous swelling 
among their fellows like the fabled frog; then themselves 
to earth, their names to infamy, their wealth to others, and 
to the state a heritage of dishonor. The big four! And 
their epitaph. They gorged themselves with ill-gotten 
wealth, betrayed their trust, set an example of successful 
swindling, leaving to posterity the air foul with their 
memories. 

The Fraser river mining excitement in 1858 carried 
away 15,000 of California's best working men, while the 
flood of 1862 drove many farmers to the city; changes to 



242 RETROSPECTION 

the injury alike of the agricultural interests and civic 
loyalty. Droughts in 1877 and the spread of Kearneyism 
with the persecution of the Chinese lowered still further 
the morale of the community. A working-man's party 
was organized, and a new constitution framed, the primary 
purposes of which were to equalize rights and responsibil- 
ities, control corporations, and make the rich pay their 
share of the taxes, in almost all of which efforts it was 
unsuccessful. 

In 1885 Mr. Stanford made himself United States 
senator to succeed James T. Farley, democrat, chosen by 
the legislature of 1877-8. He gave as an excuse for thus 
placing himself where he could hunt his game at close 
range that Mrs. Stanford had expressed a wish to spend 
a winter in Washington. 

Long before this, however, it became evident that 
throughout the entire United States intimate relations 
existed between corporate capital and the office-holders. 
The banner cries of the railway politicians were mainly 
dead issues, the only vital point being the nursing into 
greater efficiency the infant monster graft. 

Aristocracy and democracy had ceased to oppose each 
other, as in the earlier days of the commonwealth, while 
the new republicanism had already degenerated to a con- 
dition bordering on anarchy. The people became slack in 
their duties of citizenship. What was the use ? The wicked 
reigned, and there was at hand no deliverance; the coun- 
try was going to the dogs, had already gone to the dogs, 
therefore let it go. They suffered to be made mayor a 
baptist preacher, I. S. Kalloch, whose son, another baptist 
preacher, killed Charles de Young for printing offensive 
articles in the Chronicle, young Kalloch receiving no pun- 
ishment therefor. 

So short a time ago these from whom all were now 
begging, themselves were begging money from the people 
wherewith to build for the people a public utility to be 



THE DARK AGE OF GRAFT 243 

run for the benefit of the people. Little faith the people 
had in them, then or at any time thereafter; San Fran- 
cisco gave them money, but would not accept their stock 
even as a gift. 

Another phase of civic infelicity which came in with 
the railroad, the later somewhat perturbed nest of high 
crime being the logical outcome, appeared first in the form 
of mild paralysis, moral and industrial. Three successive 
dry seasons, with general collapse in values, disarrange- 
ment in business by the new railway, with financial de- 
pression throughout the world, prepared the soil for the 
seeds of unrest. Bossism and bribery put forth their re- 
pulsive fronts, timidly at first, then with bolder mien. 
Under these inflictions, attended by labor strikes and the 
officiousness of labor leaders, those bandits of industry, 
enemies alike to the workingman and of the public, and 
the arrogance of the railway monopolists, who levied their 
tribute on transportation, there is little wonder that busi- 
ness men should still fail to rally, but continued to present 
themselves in marked contrast to their bold and chivalrous 
predecessors of the gold-digging days. 

Great but silent at that time was the taxation tyranny, 
now happily at an end, and, let us hope, forever. At a 
meeting of bankers upon a certain occasion, said one to 
tfie other : ' ' How is it that your big bank is assessed so 
low and my small bank so high?" "Give the assessor a 
thousand dollars and you will know," was the reply. 

Railroad men, cogs in the wheels of the great machine, 
have no code of morals down in their time-tables; but in 
mercantile communities bankers, whose occupation is the 
handling of other people's money, and who impose their 
personality upon the public in somewhat undue degree 
from the glitter of gold by which they are surrounded, 
the lesser industrial lights come to regard in a measure 
as mentors in business matters. Therefore, when the largest, 



244 RETROSPECTION 

the most influential, the most enterprising and popular of 
Pacific coast financiers set the example of bold-faced 
bribery, is it any wonder that a single family dynasty should 
hold the assessor's office for a whole decade, harvesting 
meanwhile hundreds of thousands, or that this same banker, 
not long afterward, should turn defaulter, wreck his bank, 
and kill himself. Great financial lights, as in other forms 
of greatness, are invested with a halo, which, when dimmed 
by indirection, casts a gloom over honorable traffic. 

In 1891 the San Francisco grand jury began work in 
earnest to discover frauds and send criminals up for pun- 
ishment. Stephen T. Gage, of the Southern Pacific board 
of directors and later railway governor of the state, re- 
fused to appear as a witness. As the result of their efforts 
they found that bribery was a constant and important 
element in legislation, with little attempt at concealment. 

Leland Stanford was called upon to testify, whereupon 
the supreme court declared that the grand jury was im- 
properly constituted by reason of some trifling irregularity. 
A thousand such instances might be cited as showing the 
contempt in which was held courts, justice, and considera- 
tion for the public. 

A committee of one hundred citizens was appointed by 
Mayor Phelan to draft a new charter, which was adopted 
at the next election, but failed to accomplish any consider- 
able reform. 

Hope arose now and then for a brief period in the 
hearts of the people, as when a truly honest and conscien- 
tious man was chosen governor or perhaps sent to the 
United States senate. But in all the forty years of our 
dark age there was scarcely one of that category elected 
governor or sent to Washington, as there was scarcely 
one attained office who was not infected in greater or less 
degree with the railroad virus. George C. Perkins started 
in well as governor, but lapsed into subserviency rather 
than lose his seat in the senate, thus lessening the respect of 
his fellow citizens. James D. Phelan, always one of San 



THE DARK AGE OF GRAFT 245 

Francisco's best men, made a noble stand as mayor against 
the wealthy ring that stood ever ready to ruin the city. 

A blind man named Buckley got control of the re- 
publican party and levied contributions for a time on a 
liberal scale. Late in the century the citizens came to- 
gether and put an end to his rule, and blind Boss Buckley 
was driven from the state, which work so tested their 
strength as to show the unafraid with what ease they might 
secure good government if they only adopted the proper 
measures. And may we not drop a tear or two over the 
poor afflicted one, touched with the anger of the Almighty, 
when for a while before his departure a strange hand laid 
upon his shoulder brought pale fear to his face and filled 
his darkened soul with terror. 

During the administration of Mr. Phelan occurred a 
teamsters' strike in which cruelty and brutality on the 
part of the strikers as against non-union men caused a 
wider breach than ever between capital and labor. Between 
the domination of the railroad men and the demands of 
labor business men began to feel that American rights 
and citizenship were something of a farce when one could 
no longer control one's own affairs. 

Up to this time the octopus had spent its bad breath 
upon the state rather than on the city, but now labor comes 
forward in the form of walking delegates to foul its own 
nest. 

The choice of the walking delegates for mayor fell on 
Eugene Schmitz, himself a labor leader and orchestra 
musician, a dull, phlegmatic infloat from the German bor- 
der ; for supervisors mixed breed Italian-German and Irish- 
French, a type of alien-American citizens in most of our 
large cities; for master and manipulator a little curly- 
headed Jew, Abraham Ruef, attorney he called himself, 
educated at the expense of the state at Berkeley, later to 
serve the state in return at San Quentin. 

Several of the Phelan supervisors retained their places 
during the earlier part of the Schmitz administration, so 
9 



246 RETROSPECTION 

that it was not until after the second election of Schmitz 
in 1903 that Mr. Ruef was enabled to marshal his forces 
in full array. 

Ready now to reach out for business his active mind 
ran over several schemes which seemed simple enough to 
work. One was a proposed car strike which should de- 
moralize business and send down values so that city 
bonds might be bought in by the bankers at a low price. 

Approaching Rudolph Spreckels with this proposition, 
the banker's eyes were opened to the rottenness of things 
around him, and he resolved to take active measures for 
reform. 

Meanwhile Ruef himself was approached, Schmitz re- 
ferring to him all applications for franchises or favors. 
"Would he sell us some of the city's good things?" Oh, 
yes, he would sell them all, sell them twice, if need be, sell 
the buyers, sell to both sides, peradventure, and deliver the 
goods to neither. Catch them at it? Who was to catch, 
and what? Might not a lawyer practise his profession? 
And was he not entitled to his fee, say two thousand dol- 
lars for properly policing a disreputable house up to 
two hundred thousand retainer from a rich corporation? 
And who was to talk about it? No one who was not him- 
self seeking the retirement of a prison cell. 

Schmitz' elevation to office was strictly a class issue, 
and his elections and administrations were so skilfully 
managed by Ruef that the question was frequently dis- 
cussed as to when if ever the chains thus fastened upon the 
municipality would be broken. But wide-spread as was 
his sway, Ruef could not control the district attorney's 
office, to which William H. Langdon had been elected on 
the union labor ticket, a man who always proved true to 
his trust. That infamy remained to be accomplished at 
a later date by the high bribers by placing in the office one 
of their many tools for the purpose of stopping prosecu- 
tions. 

Such was the situation. The city had sold herself and 



THE DARK AGE OF GRAFT 247 

the buyers were now selling the city. No way seemed 
possible to prevent the robbery of millions by this unholy 
crew. The fire of April, 1906, arrested their work but for 
a moment. A spasm of contrition passed over them, as 
they beheld the destruction of the city, pity for the suffer- 
ing, the starving, whose distress they helped to relieve by 
the distribution of the charities which came pouring in on 
them, but most of all pity for themselves lest their occupa- 
tion should be gone. But all other considerations quickly 
passed from them when once assured that the city would be 
rebuilt, and their field for plunder vastly enriched by the 
catastrophe. 

The campaign of the reelected officials opened auspi- 
ciously. Almost every rich man wanted something, and 
that made business. Schmitz and the supervisors took 
what was given them, often in silence, and no questions 
asked, and voted as they were told. It was a happy family ; 
the members not wise, however, in displaying their new 
riches so ostentatiously. One answer fitted all complaints 
brought to Schmitz, "See Ruef," as in the palmy days at 
the assessor's office the refrain was, "See my brother/ ' 
And to all appearances the beautiful game, all winning, all 
secure, the police such gentle creatures, might continue 
for two score years longer, in which case the fate of 
the city it is fearful to contemplate. It was well enough 
known to outsiders what was going on, but how to reach 
the wrong, to grasp and eradicate it under existing condi- 
tions, that was the question. 

About this time, at the suggestion of President Roose- 
velt, Francis J. Heney, who had been successfully engaged 
in the prosecution for the United States of certain high 
offenders in Oregon and elsewhere, spent some months in 
San Francisco in quiet observation. When satisfied as to 
the state of things, he made it known that Schmitz and 
Ruef should be sent to prison, and, with proper coopera- 
tion, he was sure he could send them there. He should re- 



248 RETROSPECTION 

quire with him the district attorney and be able to act as 
his deputy. He should need the assistance of William J. 
Burns, chief active detective in the United States service, 
who had proved so efficient in the Oregon land fraud cases 
and elsewhere. For himself he would accept no fee, but 
funds would be necessary for the expense of litigation. 
For these funds the district attorney must not be under obli- 
gations to the general public, nor be held accountable to 
any committee of citizens as to expenditures. Against the 
money of the bribers and the elusiveness of the bribed 
there was small hope of conviction under the ordinary 
processes of the law. It must be a still hunt. The curly 
boss was very cunning, and to go after him with blare of 
trumpets would only excite his derision. 

Thus was freely discussed from time to time the ques- 
tion of the deliverance of the city by the four men whose 
hearts were now warming to their work. 

The wisdom of these stipulations appeared later. The 
people at large, and the working-men, at first favored the 
prosecution, as was shown by returning Langdon as dis- 
trict attorney by a large majority. But the corporations, 
and the bankers at their instigation, raised the cry of injury 
to business and brought about a change of sentiment, which 
resulted later in the defeat of good government at the polls. 

After several consultations with Phelan and Heney, 
Spreckels agreed to finance the prosecution, stipulating 
only that the work should be continued to a finish, that there 
should be no outside interference, that rich and poor should 
be treated alike, and that no honor or emolument arising 
from this work should be sought or accepted. 

It was clear that crime could be reached only through 
the criminal; so Mr. Burns opened the ball by catching a 
supervisor in a trap and making him confess. Under 
promise of whole or partial immunity all the supervisors 
then confessed, and finally the tricky Ruef himself. It 
was so much a part of his oily nature to save his skin at 
the cost of his friends and confederates that he could not 



THE DARK AGE OF GRAFT 249 

withstand the temptation, and so brought on the unex- 
pected. Later, unable to keep faith even with the prosecu- 
tion, and influenced no doubt by the gold of the rich men, 
Ruef doubled on himself, as he is likely to do again should 
occasion offer. 

How by Ruef's testimony Schmitz was convicted and 
sent to prison; how Ruef by his own confession was pro- 
nounced guilty and placed in charge of an elisor for further 
utilization I have not room for details here. The super- 
visors were directed to keep their seats, obedient to their 
masters of the prosecution, which they were only too glad 
to do. They were told to declare the office of mayor vacant, 
and put one of their number in his place; he in turn to 
nominate and place in the mayor's chair, Edward R. 
Taylor, a well known citizen, retained in his seat by a 
large majority at the next election. The supervisors were 
then permitted to resign and scatter, Taylor choosing for 
himself a new board. All this was done under the direc- 
tion of Mr. Spreckels, who, as dictator held the govern- 
ment of San Francisco in his hand, and might have shaped 
it to selfish ends had he been so disposed. Selecting with 
care men of ability and integrity to be installed in the 
various offices he made up a good government ticket which 
was elected by a sweeping plurality. 

Heney was made deputy district attorney under Lang- 
don and began his prosecutions in 1906 with 129 indict- 
ments against Ruef, besides those against Schmitz, Calhoun, 
and others. Implicated directly or indirectly in charges 
of a more or less criminal nature were the Telephone, the 
Gas and Electric, and the Parkside companies, and the 
United railroads, together with certain bankers and busi- 
ness and professional men, and a number of gambling 
houses, prostitution palaces, and French restaurant estab- 
lishments. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE INJUSTICE OF LAW 

IN the nomenclature of American politics the terms law 
and justice are loosely used and often misapplied. 
For example, we often hear it said that "justice is based 
on law and order, and without law and order there can be 
no justice," yet the phrase is meaningless. Justice is an 
attribute; law, an entity. Justice is a vital principle of 
progressive humanity ; law is an article, manufactured to 
fit the occasion. Justice is infinite and eternal; law is 
finite and transient. 

However we may weld together the terms in statutes 
and tribunals, however we may sound them from the ros- 
trum there is no relativity between them. 

There are many courts of law in the United States; 
there are some courts of justice. And although it seems 
at times that justice comes high, the overthrow of justice 
comes still higher. To secure justice in a fair tribunal of 
justice simple words properly proved should be all that is 
necessary, whereas to defeat justice subtle ways and ex- 
pensive tricks are required. 

What is the price of justice in this Republic? Is it so 
costly an article or so difficult to obtain as to make it 
necessary for every large trust, corporation, and special 
interest to retain in its service a corps of expensive attorneys 
and judges? Is it to secure or defeat the ends of justice 
that these men are employed ? Is it to secure or defeat the 
ends of justice that smart lawyers with no conscience are 
able to sell their services at thirty or fifty thousand dollars 
a year? 

250 



THE INJUSTICE OF LAW 251 

Are laws made to secure the ends of justice, or is justice 
made to secure the ends of law ? How is it that on opening 
court justice is caged and set aside, while all tongues go 
clamoring about law? "Your Honor, this is the law. 
Your Honor is herein bound by the law. Your Honor 
will instruct the jury as to the law." Never a word about 
justice or right or wrong, but paramount in every tribunal, 
great or small, it is from first to last law, law, law. 
The best paid lawyer is not he who secures justice, but he 
who most successfully bamboozles facts and manipulates 
the statutes. 

But laws are the fundamental element of civilized so- 
ciety, the sign manual of progress. As the laws are heard 
and obeyed the people prosper, the powers of mind taking 
the place of brute force. By law the universe regulates 
itself; nebula revolves to substance and substance clashes 
to nebula ; the cosmos is law. So we are taught. 

Wherefore, although it is a nuisance, at times cruel, 
merciless, unjust, iniquitous, it is a necessary evil, and we 
will not try to get away from it. 

However inexorable law may be in regard to the uni- 
verse, in the affairs of men law is the creature, not the 
creator. As we have long made our gods without knowing 
it, so now we make our laws, and knowing it or not, in- 
continently turn them into gods and fall down and worship 
them. 

Law is essential to continued progress; there can be no 
real or continued progress without justice; therefore in a 
certain sense it may be said that law is essential to the com- 
plete and proper development of justice. 

If men were more skilful in the manufacture of law, 
if the laws that were made to accomplish certain purposes 
did accomplish them, then those who go to court to get 
justice might be willing to take law instead. But as 
law is so generally served up in our courts in place of 
justice, would it not be well to have more courts of justice 
and fewer courts of law? 



252 RETROSPECTION 

If in America we do not as a rule keep up that clown- 
ish barbarism of wig and gown in court, in making of the 
judge a Santa Claus to frighten litigants and overawe the 
people, and of the officiating attorneys in like robes mounte- 
banks giving to the court-room a burlesque air, we still re- 
tain in our minds enough of the ancient superstition 
regarding law as to cause us to forget that law and govern- 
ment are made by the people for the people and not the 
people for law and government, — in a word that the people 
are law and government, that judges are the servants of 
the people, and that the court-room with its clap-trap is 
simply machinery to aid the people in giving expression 
to their will. 

"Ah! in England, don't you know," says > my cockney 
friend, "we wouldn't think we could get justice if the 
judge and solicitors did not appear in wig and gown." 

All the same the English courts are superior to ours, 
in that the judges are sincere and direct, ignoring pretence, 
hypocrisy, and cant, forbidding absolutely the employ- 
ment of technicalities and legal legerdemain in which our 
jurists so delight. Compared with those of England our 
courts of law are a fraud and a farce; a fraud, because 
five times as much money and time are spent over them 
as is necessary, and a farce, because when this is done 
three-fourths of these strained efforts bring no adequate 
results. 

On the invitation of Lord Chief Justice Alverton, 
Judge Hunt, of San Francisco, sat through a day's session 
of the criminal court of appeals in London. In two and 
a half hours of that session five cases on appeal were heard 
and decided, oral decisions being rendered from the bench 
as soon as the cases were submitted. Another amazing 
thing noted by Judge Hunt was that in England the im- 
panelment of a jury takes but little time, frequently being 
completed in a few minutes. 

In answer to this one might say that a competent jury 
of disinterested men in an important case cannot be picked 



THE INJUSTICE OF LAW 253 

up off hand in half an hour. No? "Well, then can a 
competent jury of disinterested men in an important case 
be secured in three days, or in three months ? Is ever such 
a jury secured? Is it ever the aim or desire of the at- 
torneys on either side to get such a jury ; is it not rather 
their aim to get jurymen prejudiced in their client's favor? 

Is it not as fair for one side as for the other to allow 
the judge to impanel his twelve men in the jury box and 
go on with the trial, after having asked each one a few 
pertinent questions? 

And, finally, would it not be as well to have honest 
and capable judges to try cases, without being hampered 
by the useless presence of twelve ignorant or idiotic men, — 
judges subject to recall, that when a bad man gets him- 
self upon the bench he may be replaced? 

Attorneys in England are prohibited from asking un- 
necessary questions, which explains why the jury in the 
famous Crippen case was obtained in two hours. Crippen 
was defended by masters of technical law, and yet he was 
tried and convicted in three days, and hanged on schedule 
time. 

Speaking of the attitude of English courts toward 
gentlemen of the bar, Judge Hunt says : ' ' Courtesy is the 
watchword. Not a question is permitted to be answered 
or a word spoken which will tend to prolong an action. 
An appeal taken on a technicality is an unknown quantity. 
The great masses of court records which we in this country 
associate with an appeal are unknown in England. De- 
cisions on appeal are given orally and immediately after 
the conclusion of the argument/ ' 

I thank Judge Hunt for his signal service, as it enables 
me to ask why we cannot have courts more like those of 
England, and judges who will execute justice in one quarter 
of the time and cost now employed, and put a stop to hair- 
splitting and hunting for technicalities? 

How different from our high priests of jurisprudence 
who are so buried beneath the weight of superfluous learn- 



254 RETROSPECTION 

ing as to require often a year or two to work their way out 
of it with a decision which even then may be nearer wrong 
than right. The truth is they are obsessed by technical- 
ities; nicety in quibbling is practised as a fine art. 

Laws in opposition to public weal and popular opinion 
are and should be inoperative. 

Laws made to secure the ends of justice but which de- 
feat justice are absurd, and if continued they hold up to 
scorn the intelligence of the people who permit them to 
exist. 

The United States Supreme judge who delights more 
in exhibiting his skill in splitting hairs and finding techni- 
calities than in exacting justice disgusts even Mr. Taft, 
who does not take the trouble to split his hairs but carries 
his complaints to Congress. 

The judge who sits upon the bench incapable of doing, 
or unwilling or failing to do that for which he was created 
is a worthless machine which should be thrown away. But 
the judge was not created to do justice, we are told. Then 
let the proper laws be made by the proper law-making 
power, and not go on century after century, learned counsel 
beating the air before solemn judges in deep meditation 
over the absurd conglomeration called a code. The time 
spent in wrangling over a single case by our so learned ju- 
rists should be sufficient to frame the simple rules which 
would secure justice. But were the laws plain and the road 
to justice easy where would be the occupation of our so 
learned jurists with their long talks and large fees. 

It is well enough to say that the judge is sworn to ad- 
minister the laws and not to make them, and that it would 
be dangerous to allow him to unreel out of his own brain 
in the name of justice whatever his fancy or feelings should 
at the moment dictate. 

Is this more dangerous than to depute twelve men with 
little brains to spare thus to unreel, not the law but the 
evidence which they hold is or should be one with the law f 
Further than this, what code of laws was ever made that 



THE INJUSTICE OF LAW 255 

an astute judge could not find flaws enough in it to defeat 
the purpose of the law? Far better is an honest judge 
with a few laws than an unintelligent jury with many laws. 

Or if the laws are so ineffective and judges so unre- 
liable why do not men learned in the law make the laws 
what they should be without spending so much time in 
idle talk, and then let the people install men as judges to 
administer these laws and execute justice? Here in these 
United States, in the fiftieth century of our civilization, 
for men of learning and intelligence to stand around like 
images of wood or stone realizing the miserable condition 
of things, the imperfections of the law and the inefficiency of 
the courts, with little or no attempt to remedy matters is 
not praiseworthy on the part of the profession. 

It is ridiculous that laws should be allowed to stand 
whose operation divides the minds of the ablest men, when 
they should be so direct in securing justice that a school-boy 
might construe them. 

Here is an assembly called a court of justice with in- 
terpreters of the law and ministers of learning. With due 
solemnity the judge takes his seat amidst calls for order. 
Then begins the battle between law and justice and when 
justice is duly overthrown the conqueror steps proudly 
forth, once more a victor in many battles. 

Is not the mens legis, the spirit of the law, to be con- 
sidered at all, but only the letter of the law ? 

Let us have law and order by all means, and statutes 
and constitutions, and fighting men and hangmen, and 
battle-ships and penitentiaries, all to serve the fetish law, 
but let the law meanwhile feed its fetish. Law is a neces- 
sary evil, and judges must confine their decisions within 
the limits of it, but as long as law is so faulty is it wise 
to so blindly serve it ? Might we not have a law that courts 
should first of all secure justice and that a law which de- 
feats justice should be inoperative? 

Indeed steps have already been taken in certain quarters 
in that direction, as an amendment to the constitution for- 



256 RETROSPECTION 

bidding the reversal of a judgment by the supreme court 
on technical grounds, which is a step toward giving justice 
the supremacy before the law that it deserves. 

When the wise mechanician sees that his machine is 
imperfect, that instead of accomplishing his purpose it de- 
feats it, will he endow it with inexorable necessity and 
stand by in a state of imbecility, and declare that though 
he made the machine he must not alter its running? 

As laws are made to secure the ends of justice, if they 
fail in this they are not laws, or should not be so con- 
sidered, and it should not be permissible for the judge to 
construe them to the obstruction of justice. 

An illegitimate child may not claim a share in the 
parental estate. Is this right? No, but it is the law. That 
is to say, a law is made and placed upon the statute books 
to perpetuate injustice? It seems so. Then let the law be 
changed, and until it is changed the people it appears must 
submit to legalized injustice. 

Before the American bar association, in New York, G. 
W. Kirchwey, dean of the Columbia law school, declared 
that "Our courts must realize once for all that the power 
to do justice, greater than the power to administer law, is 
the power that is really committed to them; that a prece- 
dent is only a signpost pointing out the direction in which 
the feet of justice must go, not a rule binding upon the 
mind and conscience of the judge; that our courts are 
set in their high places as interpreters of the popular sense 
of morality and right and the popular sense of justice, not 
as interpreters of obscure oracles handed down from a 
remote antiquity. They will receive and they will de- 
serve respect so long as the law which they lay down is the 
expression of the public will, and no longer." 

There is no excuse whatever for the miserable machinery 
we have for grinding out justice. A stranger from Al- 
truria sitting in one of our court-rooms for half an hour 
would set us down for a nation of imbeciles. What is it 
they are trying to do? he would ask. Or what is it they 



THE INJUSTICE OF LAW 257 

are trying not to do ? Not one murderer in ten is punished 
at all ; not one in a hundred is hanged ; for killing twenty- 
one men, working-men, in a bunch, and confessing to it, the 
murderer, a labor leader, is sentenced to imprisonment for 
life, but will probably be set free in a few years to go forth 
and kill twenty -one more, if he chooses to do so. 

A somewhat hollow appendage of law is precedent. 
What is precedent? Previous usage; something similar 
and antecedent, which because of having been used must 
be used again. Sound or unsound, right or wrong, just 
or unjust, having once taken part in a judicial decision it 
becomes a rule. The absurdity of which appears in the 
excuse of the California supreme court when brought up 
against an admitted violation of the constitution in the 
Ruef case, which was that it was only following its own 
custom ! 

A law once broken, or an illogical or absurd ruling made 
by a high tribunal, it is a precedent, and may be used 
indefinitely to legally break laws and enforce unjust de- 
cisions. 

It made it right because a supreme judge had broken 
the law these many times for him to go on breaking it at 
all times, so he said. And he was right, if there is so 
much in precedent. 

Whether or not precedent is sensible and sound, 
whether or not it is right and proper to follow precedent 
depends altogether on what the precedent is, which reduces 
the proposition to an absurdity. 

The great obstacle standing in the way of the reforma- 
tion of court practice is the fetish that men of the law make 
of their profession. Learned in the law, learned in the 
scriptures, are expressions which to the vulgar mind imply 
something akin to the supernatural, and lawyers and judges 
seem tinctured a trifle with like superstition. Nowhere 
was this ever more clearly exemplified than in the wide- 
spread discussions relative to the recall of the judiciary, 



258 RETROSPECTION 

in which was displayed a rather unusual lack of logic. 
Nowhere have our lawyers and judges, guardians of juris- 
prudence and ministers of justice, ever appeared at greater 
disadvantage than while speaking on this measure, which 
has been adopted by so many of the states. The attitude 
assumed and the arguments advanced were the outcome of 
various motives or idiosyncracies. The ablest attorneys, 
who should and did know better, were governed by their 
relations, actual or desired, with the judges. To advo- 
cate their recall would antagonize the court and lessen the 
influence of the pleader. 

Another class believes it bad for judges to be placed in 
a position so closely subservient to public vagaries. 

A third class holds to the superstition that law and limbs 
of the law belong to the category of things sacred, and not 
to be lightly handled by the layman. 

Some of the judges favored recall, and some were against 
it. Mr. Taft, usually found on the wrong side of any 
question, and if ever again made a judge would himself 
soon be a fit subject for recall, strongly opposed the 
measure. 

It was for lawyers and judges an unfortunate break 
in the long age of their adoration this abrupt revolution in 
ideas and sentiment concerning law and justice, concerning 
the rulership of men by men, the rulership of the people 
by the people; it was unfortunate for the judiciary that 
their sanctity should be thus imperiled and their prestige 
thus lost to them forever. 

To a layman the arguments advanced by the judges 
showed a fundamental error of judgment, a warped intellect 
not unlike that displayed by Mr. Gladstone in his discus- 
sions with Robert Ingersoll. The former assumed that 
the scriptures were the inspired word of God and attempted 
to prove their validity by the writings themselves. The 
judges assumed that they were different from others, that 
the judge and his office were sacred. The people do not 
so see it. They see nothing in the judge or in his office, 



THE INJUSTICE OF LAW 259 

or in courts of law — all articles manufactured by the people 
— that need protection from the will of the people that are 
not found in governors, legislators, sheriffs, or other 
officials. 

The question arises, are those judges with minds so 
warped by so simple a subject as the recall of the judiciary, 
are they competent to hold court at all, or attempt to de- 
termine other simple subjects? 

Such judges as still hold to these ancient hallucinations 
would do well to give them up, for the people will have the 
recall whether the judges like it or not, and if any do not 
wish to serve on these terms they are not obliged to do so. 

To the reflective mind of average penetration all the 
arguments opposing the recall of judges while favoring 
the recall of other officials are equally fallacious. Those of 
the first class, where the argument is made simply to curry 
favor with the court, are not worthy of consideration, being 
hypocritical throughout. 

Those emanating from the second and third categories 
are equally unsound. The first usually advanced is the 
effect of popular pressure upon the decision of the court. 
This implies three equally absurd conditions. First, the 
fear of recall is or should be no greater than the fear of 
non-election for another term, and poor indeed must be 
our opinion of one we imagined so weak and culpable as 
to speak falsely through fear of rosing office. Second, no 
judge was ever yet recalled for rendering a righteous 
judgment, nor is he ever likely to be. Third, no righteous 
judge ever yet feared recall. 

No nation accords its judiciary a higher position than 
the United States, and for the most part our judges are 
able and honest. They are the bulwark of society and ex- 
ercise a powerful influence for good. How can we say, 
then, that such men are so weak and timid as to allow their 
decisions to be influenced by fear of the people who elected 
them, by fear of any consideration, least of all that of 
losing office! To discourage judicial legislation, as is the 



260 RETROSPECTION 

tendency of the profession, is to reduce the supreme court 
to a piece of machinery, to serve as a balance-wheel for 
the regulation of the law. 

Admit as they tell us, those learned in the law, that 
judges are not lawmakers, that they are not administrators, 
that they are not to determine what the law should be but 
what it is, and that their independence, their sense of dig- 
nity and of freedom is of the first consequence to the stabil- 
ity of the state. We should answer that man establishes 
the law, while a power superior to that of man establishes 
justice. Men make a law which until abrogated must be 
blindly followed, though it leads down to destruction. 
This makes a fool of one and a fetish of the other. 

They might argue that as the laws are conflicting and 
justice erratic they would reserve to themselves the right 
of interpretation and like the judges follow their own 
shades of opinion. One is as logical as the other; the law 
impedes justice for the judge and business for the grafter. 

What is a government without a constitution, they ask; 
what is a court of justice without law ; what is a judiciary 
without hidebound books to keep the judges straight? Do 
we want to invest courts of law with arbitrary power, and 
give them legislative as well as judicial functions, and per- 
mit the judge to determine cases according to his fancy? 
If the law is faulty change it, but do not ask the judge to 
forswear himself. 

By no means. First let the law be just, then let the 
law say to the judge, in cases where law and justice con- 
flict, let justice govern. If the incumbent is not competent 
to do this, remove him, and put in his place a man who is 
competent. 

Idle talk, impracticable, will not work, they would say. 
Then adopt some course that will work, any course but 
the present one, which works too well for the devotees of 
high crime. 

To say that courts of law, as at present existing, are not 



THE INJUSTICE OF LAW 261 

swayed more by corporate money and elective legerdemain 
than by the interests of the commonwealth is to say what 
every one knows to be untrue. Judges as well as senators 
and presidents are very human, and few decisions are 
rendered that are not first submitted to the subconscious 
lime-light of future elections. 

The eyes of the judge resting on a wealthy litigant are 
not the same eyes that regard the ragged offender. 

The people are the law and the government. The 
people, not the judges, are the Almighty. The people 
think more of right and wrong than of the law, the 
judges care nothing for right or wrong, the law is their 
deity. 

Judges should not be influenced by popular feeling, 
they say. Why ? Judges are not infallible ; they are mere 
men like ourselves. The people are sometimes right when 
the judges are wrong. Or if judges should not be swayed 
by the people, should they then be swayed by the eloquence 
of an attorney? The Almighty who listens alike to the 
prayers of his people and the howlings of the mob judges 
all. May not earthly judges, therefore, hear without preju- 
dice the voice of the people, — which we have been told is 
the voice of God — as well as the words of a paid pleader? 
The one is spontaneous, the other partisan ; the one is void 
of special interests, the other is for thus much moneys per 
diem. 

It appears then in the matter of recall that the people 
may be trusted to elect a judge, but not to discharge him. 
At election, it is the sovereign people; at a recall it is the 
mob. To recall a state judge in most of the states requires 
the names of 50,000 or more voters to a petition, and after 
that a majority of the voters at the polls, — quite a con- 
siderable mob. 

When there can be no recall except by a majority of 
all the voters in the state, and that is mob rule, then the 
state is a mob. In an elective judiciary the judge is re- 
sponsible to the people. He may call the people a mob if 



262 RETROSPECTION 

he likes, he may say of those who elected him to office that 
they are a rabble and under the rule of passion, it makes 
no difference ; these are they who placed him on the bench, 
and to them alone must he answer for his acts, that is to 
say if he still wishes to serve a mob in the capacity of 
judge. 

Will the recall lessen the independence of the judges 
more than it is already lessened by the desire for reelection ? 
Will fear of recall be greater than present fear of defeat 
at the polls? 

It would make judges subservient to the people and 
compel the bench to assume an attitude of defense, we are 
told. And why not? The judge is one of the people, 
chosen by the people, and if charged with error or misde- 
meanor why should he not defend himself? 

Prominent members of the legal profession who regard 
the law, or pretend so to regard it, as something sacred, and 
the machinery of law not to be tampered with, who invest 
the presiding officer with more than ordinary powers and 
dignities, with worshipful forms of approach and address, 
disrespect not to say intimidation being sacrilegious, do 
not so without a purpose. Hence the arguments of the 
greatest lawyers are of the least value in determining this 
question. 

Fear of the effects of the recall shows lack of confidence 
in both the people and the judiciary. 

Voters sufficiently intelligent to elect good officials are 
not likely to undo their work without cause. No judge 
with clean hands and a pure conscience need ever be afraid 
of the people who placed him in office. 

When the district court of the District of Columbia 
proved disloyal, in the absence of any provision for the 
recall of judges Mr. Lincoln had Congress abolish that 
court and establish a new one, leaving the unjust judges 
to their own devices. Comparing this incident with Taft's 
presumptuous veto of the Arizona statehood bill Senator 
Clapp said, "There is absolutely no logical distinction be- 



THE INJUSTICE OF LAW 263 

tween the recall as applied to bad judges and the recall for 
other bad officers. ' ' 

A judge of the United States supreme court, Stephen J. 
Field, sitting in San Francisco and Los Angeles, feared 
assault from a former judge of the supreme court of Cali- 
fornia, David S. Terry, employed, not the law, but an 
attache of the court to attend and protect him. Travelling 
up from the south on one occasion it happened that the 
two judges found themselves on the same train. Stopping 
to dine, Terry finished, and was passing out by where Field 
was seated with his man when Terry flipped his glove in 
Field's face. Whereupon Field's man rose in his seat and 
shot Terry dead. The slayer, some would say murderer, 
was arrested, and after a form of trial was of course ac- 
quitted. 

Here is a striking example of the law's logic, a proof 
of how much or how little faith the man of law places in 
his profession. Was it not an unjustifiable assault? Yes, 
but there is the law. Was not the dignity of the court 
assailed? Yes, but there is the law. Or should the court 
keep a gun in its desk wherewith to maintain its dignity? 
Is then the law a fitting instrument for every thing ex- 
cept itself ? Is it fair and proper for me to kill a man for 
flipping his glove in my face? Is it right for a United 
States supreme judge to do so? Field knew his life was 
not in danger, that Terry sought only to insult him. 

Behold the majesty of the law! Here was a judge in 
good standing and in the possession of all his faculties, 
sitting on the bench of the highest tribunal in all the two 
Americas, backed by all the enginery of power in the United 
States; when his person is threatened by violence, instead 
of invoking for protection the law which he so liberally dis- 
penses to others, he orders an assassination in the old ven- 
detta form, and sees it carried out in his own presence. 
And never a word of inquiry or reproach from any of the 
limbs of the law. 

When the mayor-preacher's son shot to death a news- 



26-4 RETROSPECTION 

paper man for alleged defamation, a prominent lawyer, 
on hearing of it, exclaimed, "I'm glad of it." "Yes," 
said his informer, "now hang -the young lord of the 
mayoralty and two of them will be disposed of." 

"He shan't be hanged; he shan't be hanged!" broke 
forth the lawyer violently. 

"Why, judge, I thought you were a law and order man. 
A force outside of the law slew the man, now let the law 
slay the slayer." 

"He shan't be hanged, he shan't be hanged," was the 
only argument this able jurist could find in extenuation of 
an illegal act. 

William T. Sherman, at one time army captain and 
banker in San Francisco, a vehement though illogical de- 
fender of impotent law, took offence at something James 
Casey said of him in a newspaper Casey published. 

"I went up stairs to Casey's room," Sherman says, 
"and told him if he ever attempted to levy blackmail on 
me or my brother bankers again, I would pitch him and his 
press out of the third story window. ' ' 

Oh! my dear General, why this violence, why this dis- 
graceful display of mobocracy, why not employ the law or 
call out the military? 

Indeed, it would be difficult to find an officer or servant 
of the law, a professional or military man of ordinary 
spirit, who has not many times in the course of an active 
life taken the law, in a greater or less degree, into his own 
hands despite his ceaseless shoutings of law and order. 
Even the saintliest divine, in his dealings with the devil, 
does not always follow the law of the Lord. 

It is really amusing as we look back upon it, the ab- 
surdity of it all, the actual supporters of law and order 
arrayed ostensibly against law while securing the purposes 
of the law ; the limbs of the law, and its loud-mouthed advo- 
cates, flourishing their pistols and bowie-knives in defense 
of lawbreakers, and shouting defiance to law-respecting 
citizens. 



THE INJUSTICE OF LAW 265 

Limbs of the law, as quickly as laymen, will become a 
mob to quell a mob. 

Geary, the mayor, calls vigilance "an unlawful and dis- 
graceful business," and then joins it. J. Neely Johnson, 
governor, denounces vigilance and incontinently assaults 
Lawrence, editor of the Times and Transcript, the governor 
getting the worst of the fight. Murray, chief justice of 
the supreme court of California, and Terry, one of the as- 
sociate judges, delighted in deeds of chivalry beyond the 
pale of the law. 

Were a business man to manage his business as the 
judges manage theirs, he would soon find himself standing 
alone. 

Were a business man, in the management of his affairs, 
soberly to consider such chicane as judges claim to be nec- 
essary he would be called a trickster. 

Were a business man to take the time and employ the 
methods of judges in reaching conclusions and deciding 
issues he would not long be a business man. 

There is no more necessity for judges to act outside 
the pale of common sense than there is for business or mili- 
tary men to do so. A general taking two years in which to 
plan a campaign would cut no more ridiculous figure than 
a judge who put off a decision for two years which should 
be rendered in two days, and which an English judge would 
determine in two minutes. 

The rule of a clique or a cabal is but little better than 
the rule of a mob. The judge who decides for law against 
justice is a more dangerous instrument in public affairs 
than the judge who decides for justice against law. The 
central idea, or frenzy if you like, of the mob is on the side 
of justice, and where justice is quickly and surely meted 
out there is no mob rule. 

A slavish following of ill-constructed laws is the cause 
of half the crime and of all the mobocracy. If sometimes 
might seems to make right, we may be sure that at the end 



266 RETROSPECTION 

right makes might. No law, leaving the mob to have its 
way, is better than bad or imperfect law which compels 
the conscientious judge to an act of injustice. 

Man being man coercion is one with his nature. He 
not only loves to coerce others but he feels the necessity 
himself of being coerced, not by others but by himself. So 
he makes laws for himself and others. He subscribes to 
them. He reveres them. They are Moloch, more than 
Diana of the Ephesians, more than the golden calf at 
Mount Sinai. Created as an aid to righteousness, they are 
more than righteousness; created to secure the ends of 
justice they are more than justice. Moloch, Diana, and the 
Calf are greater than their makers. Were it not better to 
make justice the Moloch, the Diana, and the Calf, and let 
law serve the end for which it was created? 

The law is set upon a pedestal of Moloch and approached 
with bowed head and bended knee. Its high priests are 
the holy ones of a reincarnation, the justice of heaven 
brought to earth. Though they be rank-smelling with 
iniquity, they have a skeleton robe of righteousness which 
must protect them. Justice herself must stand aside and 
bow in humility before the law. 

The Asiatics have 30,000 deities good and bad. The 
bad ones they propitiate by prayer. The good ones, being 
good, need no supplicating. The modern high jurist has 
30,000 technicalities, each one a god, and all bad, and so 
requiring endless adoration and praise. 

As you pass a person on the street unconsciously you 
take his measure. As you speak with him you feel it still 
more. His voice rings true or false; he cannot disguise 
it ; he is what he is. I have seen sitting on the bench men 
so fixed in constitutional integrity that no power on earth 
could commit them to a dishonest course. Measure up 
properly the man you make judge and neither you nor he 
need ever fear recall. Such a man would recall himself 
long before those who voted him into office would have 



THE INJUSTICE OP LAW 267 

an opportunity of doing so when once he found his honor 
or his manhood placed in circumscription. 

San Francisco has always had some good superior court 
judges, able and conscientious men, with minds more in- 
tent on present duty than on future reelection, and not 
afraid to send a rebuke to the judges of a higher court 
whenever they deemed it necessary. With regard to the 
higher courts it has been from the first entirely different. 
No greater scoundrels ever disgraced a judicial bench 
than some of the supreme judges of gold-digging days, 
southerners, mostly, fire-eaters, murderers, pimps, and 
prostitute keepers, more criminal than any criminal class 
the country has ever seen. And they have had some worthy 
successors, and yet always enough others of high integrity 
sufficient to save the state. The railway men paid little 
attention to judges of the lower courts, but took care always 
to own and control the appellate tribunals. 

When Hiram Johnson overthrew railway rule, however, 
he drew the sting from these wasps also, and with the 
scare from late publicity, and its effect upon the pend- 
ing bill for the recall of judges, these high officials deemed 
it about time to attend to their own reformation. 

Too much is made of the law; there are too many 
lawyers, too many judges and courts of law. An increase 
of judges is asked for when the number should be reduced, 
instead, and every judge in office should be required to do 
twice the work in half the time. 

At the same time the country needs a better judiciary, 
able judges of high integrity ; state attorneys who spare no 
pains to punish the guilty but will not convict the innocent 
of crime for reputation's sake; honest lawyers with an 
open mind and clean tongue; jury-box void of wooden 
images; and over the judicial bench the inscription, Law 
always, but Justice First. 






CHAPTER XV 

AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE 

ONE would think that a single experience like the 
Schmitz and Ruef episode would prove sufficient for 
any community for a lifetime, but it seems that further 
humiliation must be endured before accomplishing the com- 
plete regeneration of the city, now near at hand. And we 
must always remember that it was not the people of San 
Francisco, or of California, who thus chose the lower life, 
but cliques and classes of society banding in various forms 
and degrees for the furtherance of their personal interests 
and evil instincts, without regard to their own good name 
or to the prosperity of the commonwealth. 

During the Taylor administration, which stood for 
good government and the punishment of criminals, rich 
and poor alike, there were four several classes that chafed 
under the restraint. 

First, the high bribers, who found themselves in danger 
of prison bars. Prosecution to them was exceedingly dis- 
tasteful. With these were their friends and sympathizers, 
men of financial standing and easy morals, having business 
relations with the criminals. 

Secondly, corporations, special interests, and the many 
lawyers and politicians who live by guiding corporate capi- 
tal through the mazes of the law, escaping the law while 
breaking it, as the Southern Pacific railway, its governors 
and satellites, who besides running their trains had for so 
long a time been running the government. Convenient for 
these, as well as for the bribers themselves, was a prosecu- 
ting attorney who would not prosecute whenever an imple- 
ment so vile could be found. 

268 



AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE 269 

Third, the predatory press that sold itself to infamy for 
a small price at the first offer. 

And finally the low element, so-called but in reality no 
lower than the highest of this unholy category, the denizens 
of the Tenderloin, thieves of low degree after the manner of 
the olden time, procurers, gamblers, and the keepers of 
French restaurant assignation houses, all who delighted in 
the thought of a promised free open town, a Paris in 
America. 

All these, together with the herds of voters their money 
and influence could drive up to the polls, were fewer in 
number than the adherents of good government, which were 
and are the real San Francisco. So anxious, however, were 
the bankers, street railway officials, and all the other classes 
above mentioned to defeat Heney and stop the prosecutions 
of the rich criminals that they agreed to debauch their 
city and turn her over to the so-called labor union party 
in return for that party's agreement to support and help 
elect to the office of district attorney a man who would have 
all the indictments dismissed. 

This then was the unholy alliance, by means of which 
was elected mayor of San Francisco another labor leader, 
even more objectionable if possible than Schmitz, one P. 
H. McCarthy, a blatant Irishman, coarse, vulgar, brazen- 
faced, and wofully incompetent — a man whom these same 
bankers and capitalists would not have had connected with 
their own business in any capacity. 

A pair of Pats, and a thousand other Pats; Pat of the 
southern chivalry, Pat of the Emerald isle ; in the enforced 
embrace each feels himself degraded. And justly so. Not 
that Pat scorned Pat the less, but that Pat loved his liberty 
more. Wherefore a new shuffle and a new deal. High 
low Pat and the game. And over the dunes is heard the 
battle cries, Stand Pat Calhoun! Stand Pat McCarthy! 
For Pat joins Pat and the country goes to Pat. St. Pat- 
rick save us ! Why drave he all his snakes to America 1 



270 RETROSPECTION 

In an unholy alliance capital joins hands with labor, 
and not a blush upon the face of either. Decency must be 
defeated at any cost as it hurts business. High crime and 
low crime fraternize better than graft and good government. 

Before the world Pat and Pat were not friendly, but 
in private Pat played into Pat's hands with distinction. 
If Pat would help Pat elect to office certain men bad enough 
for his purposes, notably a lawyer, a lonely lawyer, and 
such a little one, you know, Pat would help make a mayor 
of Pat. For Pat did not like to think of himself in short 
hair and striped clothes behind prison bars, even though 
the intervening supreme court should smile upon him re- 
assuringly. And as for his company, whose twenty-five 
millions of money had been transmuted by some magic 
process into ninety millions of stock, on which the munici- 
pality was kindly requested to allow a fair interest to be 
made, — this company would like the Geary street or other 
city railroads discouraged. 

Union labor alone as I have said never elected any one 
to office in San Francisco. It was only when the labor 
leaders joined hands with high crime to defeat good govern- 
ment that they found themselves successful at the polls. 
And it is worthy of remark that whenever a labor leader 
was elected to office, the working-men were always the first 
to sicken of him. So with regard to the chivalrous sup- 
porters of high crime, whenever they placed one of their 
tools in office they were quick to become disgusted with him 
and drive him out. They wanted only virtuous women to 
enjoy, and men of high integrity to do their dirty work. 
Let all the world be good, else there is no relish for them 
in their crooked ways. 

The suzerainty of Mr. Patrick Calhoun in San Fran- 
cisco was not attended by flattering success. A strong 
man of determined purpose, as his ample jaw and thick 
neck indicated, he carried about him too much the air of 
a bully to please people inclining rather to the intellectual. 
That he possessed courage no one doubted, particularly 



AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE 271 

after he had stricken down with his huge fist, in open court, 
a little fellow who had spoken irreverently of some of the 
not too charming qualities of the Carolinian. Calhoun 
had driven the union strikers off his cars, for which act 
the people praised him. Had he appeared before them in 
the guise of the Southern gentleman he professed to be, he 
could have had anything in reason at the hands of the 
municipality. When tempted to fall, had he exposed the 
tempter and vindicated his own integrity, he would have 
saved himself and the city much trouble, and have got his 
wire-poles planted without debauching the town. As it 
is he will scarcely be able to reinstate himself in the good 
opinion of good men. 

San Franciscans are the easiest people in the world to 
get along with, affable, liberal, and tolerant, but the lower- 
ing eye and set jaw of the bully or bulldozer does not ap- 
peal to them. They are not afraid — that is to say since 
Hiram Johnson delivered them from the Philistines. They 
never were quick to take offense where none was intended. 
Too long a lesson they had in sufferance under the railway 
infliction, but they are regaining their manhood, and South 
Carolina gentlemen should have a care, especially in ob- 
structing their utilities while seeking interest on ninety 
millions of stocks and bonds which cost twenty-five mil- 
lions or less in coin. 

It was in January, 1906, that Mr. Spreckels and Mr. 
Phelan matured plans for a crusade against crime, which 
with the aid of Mr. Heney and Mr. Burns was inaugurated 
the following June, shortly after the great fire, which in- 
terrupted their operations for a short time. 

In April, 1908, the house of James L. Gallagher, chair- 
man of the boodling supervisors and chief witness against 
Calhoun, was dynamited, the family narrowly escaping 
death. Notwithstanding which Gallagher was afterward in- 
duced to leave the state and reside abroad until the bribery 
cases were dismissed. 



272 RETROSPECTION 

It is not strange that indicted criminals undergoing 
trial should resort to further crime to facilitate escape. It 
is difficult to prove, but not difficult to imagine by whom 
was instigated the dynamiting of Gallagher's house, the 
bribing of jurors, the shooting of Heney, the theft of gov- 
ernment papers, and other crimes committed to defeat 
justice. 

The prosecution of the distinguished criminals dragged 
its slow course along, every possible impediment being 
thrown in the way of justice that the mind could invent 
or money procure. 

Mr. Heney was shot down in the court room, narrowly 
escaping with his life. His assassin was shot in jail, some 
think by those who set him on to kill Heney. 

There are few examples in history of baser ingratitude 
than that bestowed by San Francisco on Francis J. Heney 
for his signal service in delivering the city from the hands 
of evil-minded men. All along through these years of 
laborious effort, his most efficient services given without 
recompense or reward, bought-up newspapers barked at 
him ; bankers and their friends snarled at him because of a 
fancied injury to their beloved business which a cleansing 
of the city would entail; the prosecuted ones cursed him 
low and deep, as they were having no good time of it. 

Nor did the lesser villains of low degree like him, the 
sort of fellows that a little money would hire to shoot him 
down in court or dynamite the dwelling of one of his wit- 
nesses. And during these almost superhuman efforts the 
lower courts supporting him nobly while the upper courts on 
some trumped-up technicality hurled back upon him one 
convicted criminal after another, all these rich and poor 
supporters of high crime while throwing every possible 
impediment in his way jeered at him. "Why don't you do 
something ? ' ' they cried. ' ' Why don 't you send the crimi- 
nals you talked about to prison ? ' ' And all the while came 
pouring in upon him from the anti-prosecution press a 
black stream of vulgar vituperation. 



AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE 273 

So they defeated him at the polls for the petty office of 
district attorney, these patriotic business men, assisted by 
the Southern Pacific coterie, the gentleman from South 
Carolina, and the choice society of the Tenderloin. 

Although there were comparatively few convictions the 
legal prosecutions brought dire distress upon the bribers. 
The disgrace attending the ordeal seemed to affect them 
less than the cost in time and money and the possibility 
of prison bars. 

Influential newspapers were hired to blackguard good 
men and denounce the best measures, and when accused of 
thus selling themselves made answer, "That's what we are 
in business for." New journals also were established, so 
that morning and evening the high grafters heard recited 
in sympathetic tones their Iliad of woes, while issues of 
vital importance to the community were denounced with 
vulgar vehemence refreshing to their souls. High society 
opened its arms to high crime, and consolatory feasts were 
held at the eating-palaces where much wine made glad the 
heart. Under the infliction a few of the more sensitive 
boodlers fell away in health and spirits; some languished 
in prison; some were set at liberty because of ill health, 
for the superior judges were generous as well as just. 

It was not in sending criminals to prison, in greater or 
less numbers, that constituted Mr. Heney's great work. 
The men of whom he had the handling in court were made 
to suffer pretty severely as it was. But it was in rescuing 
the city from the power of selfish and evil-minded men, 
and in establishing a reign of honesty in place of this reign 
of avarice, and which resulted shortly afterward in the 
complete purgation of the city at the polls. 

Said Governor Folk of Missouri, "We hear it said that 
your crusade here was a failure because only one or two 
men have been put behind prison bars. You cannot 
measure the effect of a fight such as you have been making 
by the number of men in stripes. It can only be gauged by 
the awakening of the conscience of the people." 



274 RETROSPECTION 

All through these years of good report and evil report, 
while kind souls who knew nothing about it were lamenting 
the superlative wickedness of San Francisco, underneath 
it all was another influence, the influence of good men 
working for good government, working without self-seek- 
ing, without purpose of reward, willing to accept office if 
necessary, but not hungry for place. These both corpor- 
ate capital and the labor leaders opposed, for both were 
willing to use means for the accomplishment of their pur- 
pose of which good government could not approve. 

Capital claimed the right to bribe, to buy stolen goods, 
to buy franchises, the property of the city, from the 
thieves who stole them from the city. The labor leaders 
claimed the right to coerce, unlawfully to dictate to cap- 
ital, to the people, and interfere with the welfare of the 
state, with prosperity and the growth of cities, and all 
economic development. They claimed the right to burn 
and destroy, the right to murder and maim, the right to 
boycott and dynamite. 

Of such practices, whether of capital or labor, no right- 
thinking man, no man of honorable instincts, of common 
sense or common decency can approve. Such practices no 
community can tolerate and live. The result until Hiram 
Johnson came was intermittent politics, a string of senators 
and governors, in greater or less degree subservient to 
graft and bribery and misrule, creatures cringing to the 
Southern Pacific railway; and as for the city, with now 
and then an exception, here a mayor thief, there a mayor 
mountebank, with beefy supervisors and cheaply bought 
satellites, both capital and labor sat by in shame gazing 
upon the results of their combined handiwork. 

Ruef's career ran a successful course for a period of 
ten years, and but for Heney and Burns would in all prob- 
ability be running now. Though the brightness of the 
latter part of it may have been dimmed by the shadow of 
potential prison bars, yet he had safely secured the fruits 
of his industry, which were so large that even the heavy 



AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE 275 

drain attending his struggle for freedom could not de- 
prive him of the whole of them. 

When he first attracted attention he was in the adminis- 
trator 's office as assistant. At the time of Schmitz 's reelec- 
tion he was in the full blaze of glory, yet soon to be ex- 
tinguished. Intoxicated with success, and with what he 
believed to be political omnipotence, he defied those who 
were laboring for civic honesty, and even attempted to 
obtain the office of district attorney when it became ap- 
parent that through that office there were to be prosecu- 
tions. 

Upon Kuef 's conviction of bribery he was sentenced by 
Superior Judge Lawlor to fourteen years' imprisonment. 
Lawlor was approached with considerable sums of money, 
his life was threatened, and leniency begged in person by 
a Jewish rabbi and a Catholic priest, but he remained 
firm. The supreme court granted a rehearing, but re- 
pented under threats of impeachment by the legislature 
then in session, and Ruef was finally landed in the state 
prison in March, 1911. 

Five years in which to imprison a notorious felon, 
whose guilt was self-confessed and abundantly proved, and 
which would have taken perhaps five days in England, is 
a commentary on our system of jurisprudence, on the prac- 
tice in our courts, and on the efficiency of our supreme 
judges needless to discuss. 

Because among the grafters were certain depositors 
whose interests were inimical to the interests of the city, 
the bankers made no offer for the bonds of the municipal 
railroad on Geary street when they were placed upon the 
market, nor would they purchase any of them until they 
saw that if they did not the citizens would withdraw their 
deposits and finance the public works themselves. Thus 
may be seen the quality of banking-house patriotism. 

When the Hetch-Hetchy municipal water bonds were 
first offered there were no bids. Not a single bank or cap- 
italist would buy, not from any question of validity, but 



276 RETROSPECTION 

because of the influence of corporations against the measure, 
and because of the indifference of moneyed men to the wel- 
fare of the city. ' ' I get six per cent, for my money in New 
York, and you ask me to take four and a half," was the 
final argument of a banker who had made his every dollar 
out of California. 

"Why all this hubbub about a little bribing?" quoth 
the railway governor. ''Are you not all of you bribers and 
bribed ? Do you not bribe your assessor, bribe officials for 
patronage and rulers for place? Do you not even make 
a poor girl pay for the privilege of teaching in your schools, 
and can any laborer get employment on public works who 
will not vote for the reelection of his master, of all his 
masters ? ' ' 

"Pat is a good fellow," says his honor from the sunny 
south who often sits at meat with sinners. "What's the 
matter with Pat?" 

So Patrick felt safe that the bars were up between him 
and San Quentin so long as his friend sat upon the judicial 
bench. It was annoying nevertheless; there was always 
the risk, however slight, and the expense, which could not 
have been less than one or two millions. 

All the same, poor Pat toiled on, for he was grit to the 
back-bone, even if he was not always happy in the perform- 
ance of hollow social functions. The hair silvered and the 
features wrinkled. Pat was punished, yet the battle was 
not altogether lustreless, for still were his, the stars with- 
out the stripes. 

Success is the sine qua non. There are various forms 
and phases of bribery, but iniquitous all. Buying votes 
with money is one way ; giving employment on public works 
in return for votes is another way. Buying a legislature 
is one way; a promise of patronage is another way. It is 
the weakest spot in our republican government that from 
president to postman, from the moment he gets himself 
into place his wits are set at work, his resources conned. 



AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE 277 

and his forces marshaled to secure reelection. Our worthy 
presidents will not take money from the federal treasury 
to buy for themselves another four years of blissful power, 
but they will employ any and all others of the many fed- 
eral resources at their command as bribes for future favors. 

With the new tyranny, the tyranny of combined labor 
following the tyranny of combined capital, comes a new 
economic force into American life, assuming the mastery 
over all the other economic forces. With this arrogant as- 
sumption appear the elements of hatred and revenge, and 
so crime becomes king. 

All men are criminal at heart, in greater or less degree, 
and all women, some as dark as Erebus, others as light as 
the seven thousand angels standing on the point of a needle. 

Crime is king ; but when a wicked ruler is deposed peace 
smiles again. Crime is king; as a dog returns to his vomit 
so returns the evil-minded to his evil ways. Rich and poor 
alike lean toward wickedness ; hunger for money draws the 
one, hunger for bread the other. Other influences than 
those which nature and the devil furnish must be employed 
to change this innate love of wrong into a love of right for 
the sake of righteousness, into a desire to be clean for the 
love of cleanliness, a desire to be decent from a preference 
for decency. 

Crime is king. An interregnum of crime marks an 
epoch in history. An interregnum of crime signifies placid 
days and increase of virtue; signifies progress in all that 
is best and noblest in man. Crime is king, the king of evil, 
yet one of the mainsprings of human activity. It pro- 
motes inventions, aids industries, and gives occupation to 
idle hands. It sharpens the intellect and achieves wealth 
and distinction. Palaces are reared to its votaries, and 
armed attendants given them ; temples of justice arise and 
lawyers and judges come forward to meet that but for 
which they themselves never would have been created. Then 
why should not our high priests of the golden temple wor- 
ship crime? 
10 



278 RETROSPECTION 

Crime is lord and overlord. By it the poor are op- 
pressed, capital coerced, labor suborned, and strikes sus- 
tained. By it state favors are secured, special interests 
promoted, and trusts protected. By it senators are made, 
municipalities managed, and a thousand sparkling events 
thrown round our daily lives. By it the land is filled with 
churches, theological seminaries, Sunday-schools, library 
buildings, and free universities. Then why should not all 
mankind worship crime? 

With the advent of high crime incident upon the civil 
war came rapid changes in religious thought, eliminating 
the abstract forms of faith and the cruder conceptions of 
eternal punishment. The consequence was that many 
hitherto of conscientious morality gave themselves up to 
cupidity and the fascinations of fast living. 

We construe our deities from their works and their 
agents. Every man is partly of God and partly of Satan. 
The devil incarnate seldom shows himself; occasionally we 
see Faust at the tail of Mephistopheles. 

Thus crime increases in the congregations of the right- 
eous, and from a thousand pulpits in the United States 
occupied by clergymen in good standing not a word of con- 
crete censure is heard, for concrete wrong-doing pays the 
pew rent. There is but little religion in the churches, and 
that little graft is strangling. 

Yet the good clergyman should not be too severely cen- 
sured. Like the rest of us he is under the spell, a loyal 
subject of King Crime whose surname is Graft. He has a 
family and cannot risk the welfare of wife and children 
for a little matter of conscience. Nature cries louder than 
the wounds of Christ, and is nearer, withal, and nature 
is inexorable and cruel. Her laws are a Juggernaut car 
rolling on indifferent to what it crushes, indifferent to 
happiness, or misery, and which may not be evaded by any 
howsoever supreme technicality. 

The crop that springs up from the dragon's teeth thus 



AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE 279 

sown, what of that? It is the burden of this chapter, and 
I am weak and sick in the telling of it. 

It is a fine thing to be rich, even though it be stolen 
riches, even though it is known to be predatory wealth, so 
that punishment does not ensue. Men bow to the thief, 
just the same, and smile on him, though beneath his cover- 
ing of cloth he feels himself filthy. Women ogle him, his 
pastor purrs upon him, his wife and daughters mingle in 
the delights of high society. It is his reward for being a 
moral leper. 

This as to the first sowing of the teeth. With the 
second comes emulation, imitation in large and small ways. 
The strong enough man sees how he can gain some millions 
by illegal combinations of capital, known as mergers, trusts, 
and seizure of public domain, or other unlawful appropria- 
tion of public property. Others less capable or less con- 
fident with humbler efforts must satisfy themselves with 
spoils from building contracts, road-making, bribing for a 
franchise, or over-selling at double price to a speculative 
incumbent, not to mention the more plebeian practices of 
embezzlement and modest pilferings. Thus crime in a 
thousand ways becomes as the air we breathe, impregna- 
ting the blood and undermining the integrity of the com- 
monwealth. 

In common with other centres of population San Fran- 
cisco responded easily to the general criminal impulse. We 
were common humanity like the others, neither better nor 
worse, though our ever-increasing alien additions tended to 
our grading downward rather than upward. 

All the same, there is good stuff in the city yet. 

This was at the beginning of our dark age which came 
upon us gradually. We were ashamed of our wickedness 
at first, but gradually the new men of graft grew bolder, 
working meanwhile upon the hitherto respectable men of 
money until there appeared a considerable number who 
openly advocated immunity for wealthy offenders for busi- 
ness' sake while punishing poor criminals for example's 



280 RETROSPECTION 

sake; men who love too well to pose upon a pedestal of 
their own construction as protectors of finance and indus- 
try, and oracles as to what should be and not be, who love 
money dearly and have a high regard for business that 
begets money, who uphold crime and call it good for busi- 
ness, who would for personal gain sell the city and their 
own souls and call it prosperity, who set up a bastard moral- 
ity, teaching circumvention of the law, holding that pros- 
perity is better than purity and crime less criminal than 
plain honesty. 

Likewise with a logic peculiarly their own, which says 
that capital will not come to a city so perturbed, but pre- 
fers a place of treacherous repose, one of easy moral tone, 
where immunity for any indirection may always be pur- 
chased, where disreputable houses may flourish under 
special protection of the police, where before any profit- 
able investment can be made, or franchise secured, or enter- 
prise begun, or excessive taxation avoided, toll to the mu- 
nicipal vampire must be paid. 

"Oh, no!'' finally exclaims the bewildered capitalist, 
"if they punish criminals in San Francisco it is no place 
for me!" 

A new doctrine out of economics this, which teaches 
of that supersensitive thing called capital, which values 
first of all security and stability, that it shuns good gov- 
ernment and respectability, preferring an atmosphere of 
vice and crime, that it likes better association with trick- 
sters and swindlers than with men of conscience and right 
doing. And for our bankers and wealthy citizens of honor 
and good repute, let us ask, is it not playing with dynamite 
upholding as too many are doing the attainted methods of 
flagrant malefactors? 

Then corruption crept into the counties. Hitherto in 
the country some degree of purity was found. Simple and 
single-hearted, genial, neighborly, wishing well to all and 
evil to none, the men of bucolic minds and direct manners, 
to whom such terms as graft, interests, and the economics 



AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE 281 

of predatory wealth were as Sanscrit, they could not choose 
but be honest. 

But now a more ambitious outcropping appeared in 
the fields and farmyards. Young men, perhaps, who, with 
some smattering of knowledge gained at free universities, 
knowledge gained at the expense of the state to be em- 
ployed in making more criminals for the state to support, 
had absorbed the trickeries of the city men in their modern 
ways of making money, and returning home had applied 
those methods to get rich quick among their unsophisticated 
friends, until not a courthouse or a schoolhouse could be 
built, not a patch of road repaired without some portion 
of the appropriation going into their pockets. Thus was 
the cleanliness of the commonwealth befouled at the foun 
tain, the homes of purity polluted, for during the past 
hundred years the best elements of intellectual and material 
development in the city had been drawn from the country. 

In the present atmosphere of official environment it is 
almost impossible to escape the subtle influence of private 
advantage, which may be called bribery if you will, the 
bribery of self-interest, bribery for political influence, 
bribery for securing or holding office. 

Senators who buy their way to Congress are themselves 
to be bought when they get there, and instead of a govern- 
ment by the people we have a government by the purse. 

Are we then, like poor Mexico, a republic in name only ? 

He laughs best who laughs last. Terry of Texas killed 
his men but got himself killed. Casey killed King, but the 
king of killers was hard upon his heels. Ned McGowan 
achieved wonders, but an ungrateful country sent him 
away for his country 's good. Honest Harry Meiggs dropped 
his honesty but for a moment while he could gather in two 
hundred thousand dollars of other people's money and sail 
away to South America and make a few millions ; but when 
he wished to return to dear California, pay up and be 
honest again, he was flatly refused by the legislature. 

There are many yet in California who like to live de- 



282 RETROSPECTION 

cently and among decent people, who believe in every man 
working for what he gets and in getting what he works 
for. Those who would get the world did not make it, or 
work for it. They are simply appropriators of the works 
of the Almighty, or of their fellow men of low astuteness. 
And we wisest of living peoples, with the power thus ac- 
quired by conscienceless capitalists inherent in us, permit 
them thus to defy the law* and join issue with the govern- 
ment to the corruption of legislators and the demoraliza- 
tion of business standards. 

Ever since the civil war, where the seeds of the in- 
iquity were sown, the controllers of capital have become 
more and more open and unblushing in their criminal ways, 
until they now boldly assert that good business is better 
than good morals, and that punishment for crime is for 
the poor and not for the rich. 

Several causes united to impede progress after the 
fire of 1906. The insurance money, amounting to $164,- 
000,000, did not all come in for five years, though most of 
it was paid the first year. The panic of 1907, owing to 
financial conditions in New York, checked investments 
from that quarter, while certain unpatriotic bankers who 
sympathized with the bribers openly approved of high 
crime while professing good faith toward the city, thus 
holding themselves up to the scorn of all good men. 

With the rest came labor troubles, the teamsters' strike 
making possible the election of Eugene Schmitz, who. was 
three times chosen mayor. The high crime bankers and 
the bribing capitalists assisted Schmitz, and later McCarthy 
in their elections, but opposed Taylor, who was not a man 
to be bought. McCarthy was beaten by Taylor in 1907, but 
was made mayor at the next election. The corporate in- 
terests assisted the bankers, breaking the ranks of good 
government. 

Many of the owners of real estate found themselves 
with a vacant lot and an insurance policy, and nothing else, 
unless it were a mortgage. As the insurance companies 



AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE 283 

were slow to pay, rebuilding could proceed but slowly. On 
the whole, the insurance companies did well, they did their 
best. They were severely stricken. Against the total 
destruction of a city no provision is made. 

Huge aggregations of wealth have become a despotism. 
Huge monopolies of labor have become a despotism. And 
if both are not controlled by the people they together will 
grind the people into dust. When the modern Moloch rears 
his grim force in the market place, the people stare ; when 
the god of intimidation appears in arms against the god of 
our fathers, the people shout. 

It was a triumph second only to Governor Johnson's 
election the defeat by Mr. Rolph of P. H. McCarthy as 
mayor of San Francisco. A labor leader of the most unde- 
sirable type, the city would have presented a singular spec- 
tacle at the coming fair, with a chief magistrate the em- 
bodiment of vulgarity and a gang of labor manipulators 
to act as hold-ups to the nations invited hither. His former 
election, like that of the chief of city spoilers, Eugene 
Schmitz, was due to the moneyed men and corporations, 
who in the Schmitz election preferred an accomplice in 
office to an honest man, and in electing McCarthy and his 
minions, among whom was an accommodating district at- 
torney, enjoyed a sweet triumph over those whose prosecu- 
tion of high crime, as they claimed, hurt business and im- 
peded progress. 

They sickened of their success, however, even though 
they succeeded in setting bribers free, and they were glad 
enough to join the good government forces in cleaning 
them out when they had no further use for them. The 
newspapers, also, came slowly around when they saw the 
certainty of Rolph 's election and wiped their lips, ready 
once more to sell themselves to the highest bidder. It was 
due, the deliverance of the city, to the long and patient 
efforts of the best citizens who preferred honesty and clean 
living to crime and immorality. 



CHAPTER XVI 

COMPARATIVE REPUBLICANISM 

PORFIRIO DIAZ, president of Mexico, was driven 
forth by the populace. Ask one of them why, and you 
will get no answer ; he does not know. Investigate, and you 
will learn that the deposed president had ruled for thirty 
years, that he had continued himself in office at first by 
the help of the army, and later by his inherent will and 
power. At the expiration of each term, directly or in- 
directly, he had himself nominated president, at the same 
time naming members of congress, governors of states, 
jefes politicos, and all the chief officials of the nation, 
whose election following was a form or a farce, his alleged 
crime being running a republic which was a republic only 
in name, and preventing another from taking his place and 
doing worse. In a word, the government was autocratic, 
and while conducted as a republic it was not a republic; 
the sovereignty of the nation was not in the people but in 
Porfirio Diaz; the administration was not given to officers 
elected by the people and representing the people, but to 
Porfirio Diaz, elected by and representing Porfirio Diaz. 

A mestizo of Oajaca, Diaz became early the coadjutor of 
Benito Juarez, also of the state of Oajaca. Side by side, 
one as head of the civil service and the other as chief of 
the army, they fought first, after the deliverance of their 
own souls from ignorance and superstition, for the intel- 
lectual emancipation of their country, and finally for the 
liberation of Mexico from material foes, within and with- 
out, from the imperialism of Lerdo and from their own in- 
sidious clergy, whose inordinate love of wealth and power 

284 



COMPARATIVE REPUBLICANISM 285 

nothing short of secularization could control — the two 
patriots triumphing in the end by the overthrow of Maxi- 
milian and driving Louis Napoleon's soldiers back to 
France. 

Who was Benito Juarez? He was one of the most re- 
markable men of any age or nation. A full-blooded Ameri- 
ican Indian, of the Aztec strain, he came down out of the 
mountains of Oajaca with a drover while escaping the ill- 
treatment of an uncle. He could not speak a word of 
Spanish, but only his native Aztec tongue. He was a wild 
waif, less than half clad, having a bronze skin and matted 
hair, eleven years old, with a face brightly illuminated 
with genius implanted by divine favor. 

A priest picked him up, washed him, and had him edu- 
cated for the church. Later, preferring the law, he be- 
came chief justice, then governor of Oajaca, then pres- 
ident of the Republic. That within him was the genius, 
the inspiration to deliver himself from the thraldom of his 
environment and discern the relative attitudes of church 
and state to the progress of mankind, is one of the most 
remarkable examples in history. 

For at that time the church in Mexico was omniscient 
as well as omnipotent, embodying most of the learning and 
controlling most of the wealth of the nation; and here was 
a wild Indian, caught and reclaimed while young, though 
carrying always the imprint of his race in the dusky skin, 
the high cheek bone, the lank hair and piercing black eye, 
a savage instilled in all the civilized superstition of the 
time at the feet of an Oajaca Gamaliel, his intellectual 
transformation resulting in the profound statesmanship 
which founded the Republic and saved it from internal 
strife and foreign invasion — his deliverance, I say, seems 
a miracle akin to the conversion of St. Paul without the 
attendant light and directing voice. 

When we see that Mexico owes its late happy condi- 
tion equally to the two men, Benito Juarez and Porfirio 
Diaz, and that one receives his reward in honors, his statue 



286 RETROSPECTION 

standing in many market places, while the other is driven 
forth in ignominy at the hands of those who envied him 
his honors and his place, we do not feel our respect in- 
creased either for the mestizos of Mexico or for the aliens 
who now delight in censure of that which they so lately 
praised. 

What, then, was Benito Juarez, and what was Diaz? 
The one a wild Indian and yet a Washington, one who loved 
his country, giving to it the fruits of his immortal mind, 
and died, taking no toll; the other equally a patriot yet 
doomed to martyrdom. 

Should we deem it worth while to institute comparisons 
between neighboring republics it is but fair to consider 
at the outset the quality of humanity involved, relatively, 
their origin and environment or other engendering con- 
ditions. 

It is generally understood that republicanism as it 
stands to-day is not a definite quantity but rather a pro- 
gression. The problem is not yet worked out in how far 
this form of government is applicable to masses of man- 
kind of greater or lesser intelligence. It seems to us, citizens 
of the greatest of republics, that the system works well 
where the people are honest and intelligent. But if the 
people are sufficiently honest and intelligent no govern- 
ment of any kind is necessary; and that is the whole sub- 
stance of republicanism, the nearest to no government of 
any yet invented. 

Masses of mankind, however, are not all intelligent and 
honest, and the more wild and unruly they are the stronger 
must be the reins that control them. If under long dis- 
cipline, as in England, the people become tame and tract- 
able, the reins of rulership may become as silken threads 
and yet be all sufficient, though in empty royalty and use- 
less aristocracy there still remain the hollow forms and 
senseless mummeries of an obsolete barbarism which one 
who has tasted freedom could never adopt. 



COMPARATIVE REPUBLICANISM 287 

Here in the two Americas we have the several phases 
of republicanism thus far evolved, most of them not yet 
a century old, each working itself out along lines of its 
own, independent of the others, but all modelled upon the 
matchless system, adopted by Hamilton and Jefferson, 
This, or any other system is and must be modified to meet 
the quality and condition of the people for whom it is 
employed, and to speak of this or that one as a republic 
only in name is to say the least speaking vaguely. 

What is a republic only in name, and what a true re- 
public, a republic not a republic only in name? 

Notwithstanding the proximity of our sister republic, 
and the long reign of its late president in the name of re- 
publicanism, Porfirio Diaz and his Mexican suzerainty 
have been understood but by few. The man has been 
usually portrayed as a despot, his rule autocratic, his will 
absolute, his reelections a farce, his congress a fraud, and 
his republic no republic at all. 

This is very near the truth, but it is not the truth. In 
the sense in which one generally hears it spoken and 
received, that is to say, in an evil sense, it is very far from 
the truth. 

During the progress of my historical work I made sev- 
eral visits to the city of Mexico and saw much of President 
Diaz and his ministers. I used to meet them frequently in 
their respective offices at the palace, but I saw them oftener 
at their private residences, particularly at the house of the 
president, and at the home of Romero Rubio, father of 
Mrs. Diaz. During these visits from time to time I wen* 
with General Diaz over his entire career, touching the 
strings which sounded his inner nature, until I came to 
know him well, and to understand his idiosyncrasies and 
aspirations at the beginning, and his hopes and endeavors 
toward the end. I had every opportunity of studying the 
man at close range. And this is what I came to know, in 
his mind and heart, in public and in private, that he was 



288 RETROSPECTION 

direct and sincere in all his ways, and that he was void of 
avarice and cared little for personal aggrandizement. 
Therefore when I heard of his treatment at the hands of 
his people I was shocked, and grieved beyond measure over 
the mistake the poor deluded mestizos were making. His 
predecessor in the presidency, Benito Juarez, had served 
four terms successively and had died in office. Diaz not 
only took up the work of Juarez and continued his reforms, 
but adding modern progressiveness and economic develop- 
ment to political regeneration carried forward the country 
to a high tide of prosperity. Juarez had laid broad the 
foundation for popular government following the best 
models, Diaz proceeded to erect the superstructure but 
found the material inadequate. A popular government 
presupposes people; there were no people. There was an 
aristocracy who would not work but were willing to gov- 
ern. Then there was the mozo or servile class; between 
these classes there was little or nothing in the way of re- 
sponsible population. 

The whole country from mountains to seaboard was 
still infested with highwaymen ; the clergy were disaffected, 
preferring imperialism and Maximilian, and no secular- 
ization. The Mexicans, these wild mestizos, must be held 
in check and driven with a tight rein. Call it despotism or 
tyranny if you like, that is what was wanted; and it was 
the only kind of government that would save the country 
from anarchy and endless revolutions. 

Even though Juarez had held office through four terms, 
Diaz started out with the idea that the president should 
not succeed himself. He framed a law to that effect and 
at the end of his term gave his seat to General Gonzalez, 
a fellow-soldier of the intervention war, coarse, illiterate, 
self-seeking, whose libertinism debased morals, and whose 
cupidity kept the government exchequer empty. He was 
always getting into scrapes and calling on Diaz to help 
him out. So frequent were these demands that at one time 
General Diaz kept a coach and horses standing night and 



COMPARATIVE REPUBLICANISM 289 

day at his door ready to dash off to the palace or elsewhere 
to quell a riot or quiet the army and so keep Gonzalez on 
his feet a little longer. 

Long before the time was up Diaz determined that there 
should be no more of that sort of government if he could 
prevent it. 

Meanwhile, though not in office he spent his time work- 
ing for the people. He promoted education, established 
schools, attended examinations, and gave out prizes. 

When he assumed the presidency the country was in a 
state of anarchy. Revolution was in the cities, while the 
country roads were infested with highwaymen. With a 
strong hand he cleared the country of robbers and revolu- 
tions and held it for thirty years in a state of peace and 
prosperity. He caught some of the chief bandits, dressed 
them up in bright new soldiers ' clothes, and sent them 
forth well armed and proud as peacocks to hunt down their 
old comrades and clear the country of them. In a word 
Porfirio Diaz has been from first to last his country's 
benefactor. He employed every means at his command to 
elevate the people and develop the resources of the country. 

Rising from humble origin, he found his country pov- 
erty-stricken, priest-ridden, struggling in the grasp of a 
foreign foe; he left it prosperous, progressive, and happy; 
a good government, an efficient army, and thousands of in- 
dustries flourishing all over the land. Where shall we find 
another such instance? Surely any form of government, 
any economic policy which produces such results cannot 
be called bad. Under no form of government save ab- 
solutism or a republic in name only could this have been 
accomplished. 

Every people will have the sort of government suitable 
to them. An anarchic or revolutionary condition seems 
best to suit Mexicans; before Diaz' time they had it and 
will now have it again. 

We love to interfere in the affairs of a weaker neighbor, 
to play providence, perhaps to play the bully a little, and 



290 RETROSPECTION 

watch for some advantage to fall to us, like California, for 
example, only legitimately, of course. So we mobilize 
troops along the border when they are in trouble, and when 
our boys who cross over to take a hand in the fight are 
caught, the cry is raised protesting over the just punish- 
ment of those who thus leave their country to stir up strife, 
aid revolution, or otherwise unjustly intermeddle in the 
affairs of another. 

In all filibustering expeditions it is the same, whether 
William Walker's band of tatterdemalion cutthroats in 
Nicaragua, or the mild and courteous Austrian prince with 
the French army and Mexican clergy at his back, or ad- 
venturers from the United States assisting rebels in their 
attempt to overthrow the existing government, no sooner 
are they caught and a just punishment threatened than 
protests and a cry for mercy are raised. 

In the case of Maximilian, Secretary Seward had warned 
Louis Napoleon that French intervention in Mexico would 
not be permitted; that his too palpable game of statecraft 
in having at hand an army of intervention for the United 
States as well as for Mexico, as soon as the south should 
show sufficient strength, would not work; and that as soon 
as our little misunderstanding at home was settled we would 
look into the matter of French and Austrian imperialism 
in Mexico. 

And the French emperor, reading the signs of the times 
aright, withdrew his army and so saved himself trouble. 
He urged Maximilian also to withdraw, but the chivalrous 
Austrian said no, he would not desert his friends. 

Unfortunately for the captive Maximilian, the edict had 
been for some time promulgated on both sides of ' ' No quar- 
ter; death to all prisoners. " 

Under this edict the migratory republic, held together 
by Juarez as president, had been driven from the city of 
Mexico with its ministerial supporters, and a few papers 
and blank books standing for the archives of the nation. 

Juarez fled first to San Luis Potosi, thence after a brief 



COMPARATIVE REPUBLICANISM 291 

respite, he retired slowly toward the United States bor- 
der at El Paso, to the spot which to-day bears his name, 
whence he might cross the boundary at a moment's notice 
should it become necessary, for capture he knew was death 
for himself and all his associates. 

Why then did Secretary Seward, probably the best and 
brightest man that ever filled the chair of state, why did 
he, knowing that Louis Napoleon was pledged to destroy 
the American union if once he could get an entering wedge, 
knowing that Maximilian was pledged to kill Juarez if he 
could catch him, why did he raise his voice with the others 
for mercy on this poor innocent interloper? 

Oh, diplomatic courtesy. Our government must not ap- 
pear brutal, even to fiends or their victim ; besides, he knew 
very well that Maximilian must die, and deservedly so. 

In reviewing affairs in Mexico, past and present, we 
should not fail to consider Diaz the man apart from the 
Diaz government. We should not fail to consider, like- 
wise, the quality of the people to be governed, and their 
condition, and the condition of the country at the time 
Diaz the dictator took matters in hand. 

If then we choose to compare the republicanism of the 
United States of Mexico with the republicanism of the 
United States of America, and slightly to sneer at the 
former as a republic only in name, though modelled after 
the perfection of all republics, we may do so intelligently, 
and derive such satisfaction therefrom as we may. 

We shall see more clearly the quality of humanity with 
which George Washington and Alexander Hamilton had 
to deal, their inherited social forms and institutions, their 
democratic instincts and idiosyncrasies, their dominant 
ideals and aspirations, and realize more fully how different, 
how much more difficult the problem which confronted 
Porfirio Diaz in his attempt to achieve similar high results 
along similar lines but with base material. And as we 
understand, the sneer will turn to lines of admiration. 



292 RETROSPECTION 

The ancient antagonisms of English and Spanish speak- 
ing peoples followed their respective colonists to the New 
World. The Spanish American cannot tell you why he 
hates the Yankee; the Yankee thinks he knows why he 
despises Spanish intermixtures of whatsoever degree of 
duskiness. 

The former thinks mainly of what he fears and envies, 
superior strength of mind and accomplishment; the latter 
regards with disfavor a union of weakness and arrogance. 
Were they weak like the wholly black, or shrewd like the 
wholly white, they might be more endurable; but from a 
proper understanding of the respective colonial develop- 
ments, and of the later republican experiments, one was as 
far away as the other. What we have chiefly to consider 
is the present emergency, and the further unhappy involu- 
tions which are destined to follow in the further attempts 
at republicanism, or dictatorship, in respect to ourselves 
and others. 

Three centuries of viceregal rule in America, following 
ten centuries of despotism in Europe; this for heredity 
and environment as applied to the Spanish portion of the 
Mexican make-up, which with the endless native American 
intermixtures, gave Diaz the material with which to estab- 
lish a government by the people, a wild, turbulent, human- 
ity characterized by ignorance and fanaticism. 

The Anglo-Americans of Washington's day, they and 
their forebears, had spent their centuries in efforts for 
democratic institutions and political and religious liberty. 
They knew and were prepared to determine truth from 
error, and to establish a government upon the broad prin- 
ciples of equal rights to all. There was no field in the 
world better prepared for the planning of pure republi- 
canism than the English colonies; there were few worse 
places for the experiment than Latin America. 

There was no middle course possible for Diaz in Mexico ; 
his rule must be absolutism pure and simple, a despotism 
of brute force, or republicanism only in name. He could 



COMPARATIVE REPUBLICANISM 293 

not choose the former, as he had just fought against any 
sort of imperialism, foreign or domestic; besides, he did 
not believe in arbitrary rule, even in arbitrary republi- 
canism, any further than the necessities of the case de- 
manded. This is clearly proved by the law he formulated 
at the beginning of his reign, to the effect that no president 
should succeed himself, which law he was forced to rescind 
after giving it a trial. 

There had always been a lack of confidence between 
the executive and legislative departments, both before and 
after the rule of Herrera, which rendered the strictly re- 
publican form of government impracticable. It must be 
arbitrary government or anarchy, and obviously absolute 
rule, without the means of its enforcement, was not to be 
found among the law-makers ; hence the army must be 
utilized. 

Look at the two republics as they stand to-day, Amer- 
ican and Mexican, their institutions, their new inheritance, 
their present environment. Both have changed won- 
derfully, both have wonderfully increased in wealth, in- 
telligence, and industrialism. The American people have 
greatly increased in number and have deteriorated in civic 
morality and honesty. The Mexican people have not in- 
creased as much in numbers, but have improved more in 
morals. 

The Americans have lost in patriotism; they have lost 
in their respect for the past and their pride in the future. 
The Mexicans have gained in knowledge, in economic and 
military efficiency, and in accomplishments, both practical 
and ornamental. 

I have no sneer for Mexico, nor for the government of 
Porfirio Diaz, howsoever called, so long as the cardinal fact 
stands, that Mexico has been making great strides forward 
while the United States, save for the time and influence 
of Theodore Roosevelt, has been changing for the worse, 
changing from Anglo-Saxon to alien, changing morally 
from honesty to high crime. 



294 RETROSPECTION 

That it was the more difficult task, the one undertaken 
by Diaz few wiil deny ; that he carried it forward success- 
fully for a period of thirty years the republic itself bears 
witness to-day; that it was as base as it was unprofitable 
driving him forth in ignominy the present condition of 
things amply testify. And times will be worse there before 
they are better. That Mexico, tamed by prosperity, and 
restless under a long peace, now seeks the excitement that 
leads to anarchy all who know the people are forced to 
admit. 

Furthermore, as Washington was the father of British 
freedom as well as American independence, so Diaz estab- 
lished the Monroe doctrine for Spanish America as well as 
the deliverance of his own country according to its declara- 
tion. 

It is not the part of a noble nature to prey upon the 
adversities of a great man. It is not the part of a noble 
nation so readily to forget in his declining years the work 
of Porfirio Diaz for civilization and the welfare of the 
human race. 

Has our republicanism reached such a state of perfec- 
tion that we can reasonably cast opprobrium upon any gov- 
ernment that best accomplishes what is best for the people ? 

It is intended that republicanism should be a govern- 
ment by the people. Is this the case with us? If the 
people rule, then we might ask, what people? Not the 
better element in our commonwealth. It may be dem- 
agogues and politicians at one time, and at another special 
interests and the money power, the labor leaders putting 
in an unwholesome appearance at all times, but never has 
the government been made up by the best men fairly 
chosen by the people. 

Will any one who knows pretend to say that republi- 
canism such as we imagine our own to be would have secured 
better results in Mexico during the past thirty years than 
that secured by the rule of Porfirio Diaz? 

The only question I should like here to ask is not how 



COMPARATIVE REPUBLICANISM 295 

far we are from a happy state of true republicanism, but 
how much better administered, if at all, has been the 
United States of America under Taft than the United 
States of Mexico under Diaz; and how can we justly 
assail our neighbor, as so many of us like so well to do, 
with all our imperfections upon us. What single act of 
Diaz is more open to ridicule and just censure than that of 
a president abandoning his official duties and making 
junketing trips about the country at the expense of the 
people to secure his own reelection and defeat his former 
benefactor? How have we the face to slur a sister re- 
public as a republic only in name, to impute it to her as a 
crime, and half sanction the inroads of malodorous Amer- 
icans who cross the border to fight against the very prin- 
ciples that lie at the foundation of their own government, 
namely, the right to rule rightly? 

In our settlement with the south, after the civil war, 
barbarous Mexico would hardly have been as barbarous 
as were we, nor so impolitic as to give the franchise to 
four millions of manumitted African slaves. 

Nor would the republic only in name have permitted in 
its midst an oligarchy of industrialism, the rise of special 
interests to seize and appropriate to their own use the 
natural wealth of the nation, to buy and sell legislatures 
and debauch the government. At no time during the late 
dictatorial rule in Mexico would have been possible the 
ultra charitable proceedings in Congress and the presiden- 
tial amiability in relation to prominent politicians, called 
statesmen sometimes, under indictment for high crim- 
inality. 

The dictator president of the republic only in name 
would never have submitted to the trifling with justice 
which is becoming so common throughout the United 
States. 

The dictatorship of Diaz in Mexico was a good govern- 
ment, the best possible for that people, and one of the best 
in the two Amerioas. The cloak of republicanism thrown 



296 RETROSPECTION 

over it exerted little influence for good or ill, other than 
to reconcile the people to what sometimes might otherwise 
be deemed arbitrary measures. 

If in its democratic incipiency the rulers of Mexico did 
not realize the impossibility of a republic without a people, 
of true republicanism or a government by the people in the 
absence of a people capable of self-government, they did 
not hesitate twice to decline imperialism, once in the per- 
son of Iturbide, and again when Maximilian came. If they 
could not at once achieve perfect republicanism they would 
at least hold to the form while laboring to accomplish the 
fact. 

Are we prepared to say that our government is the 
best in the world, that republicanism is the best form of 
government for any people save those who want no govern- 
ing and therefore no government? Are we prepared to 
say that our government as at present administered tends 
to develop the highest moral and political ideals? Are we 
prepared to say that the associates of Taft were better 
men, more high-minded, patriotic, honest, or decent than 
the associates of Diaz? Are we not prepared to say that 
in some respects our government is rotten to the core, and 
will fall in pieces if decay is not arrested? 

Is boss rule better republicanism than the republi- 
canism of Diaz? Is a government by railroads for 
railroads better republicanism than the republicanism of 
Diaz? Is a government by high crime for high crime bet- 
ter republicanism than the republicanism of Diaz? Is the 
domination of the industrial interests of the country by 
self-seeking demagogues to the subversion of law and lib- 
erty better than the arbitrary rule of one good man? Is 
Madero and anarchy preferable to Diaz with peace and 
prosperity? Then wherein consists the superiority of a 
republic not a republic in name only over a republic which 
is a republic in name only? 

Had Porfirio Diaz committed as many blunders as have 
been perpetrated by our pure republican presidents and 



COMPARATIVE REPUBLICANISM 297 

legislators since the civil war, as the cruelties and injustice 
of the reconstruction period, the enfranchisement of the 
negroes, the prostitution of American politics and citizen- 
ship by the admission without limit of low incendiary 
Europeans while excluding harmless and useful Asiatics, 
of permitting corporate capital to usurp the government 
and intimidate the people, of allowing special interests 
and personal greed to appropriate and destroy the nation's 
wealth and resources, of tamely submitting to the tyran- 
nies of labor leaders, their boycotting, strikes, dynamiting, 
maiming, and murdering, spending long sessions white- 
washing into place bribing senators and incompetent or 
peccable ministers, and a score of other like infamies, we 
might with more reason disparage a nation of half civil- 
ized mestizos as a republic in name only. 

Diaz controlled Mexico; no one can truthfully say 
that he ruled in the interest of Diaz and not in the interest 
of Mexico. Six interests controlled by five men own the 
United States; can any one truthfully say that these in- 
terests were worked for the benefit of the United States 
rather than for the benefit of the five men? Can it be 
true then that the United States of America is a republic 
only in name? 

We do not realize how great a part of us is sham. Con- 
sider, for example, the presidential pose, as he mounts the 
presidential car on his homeward journey to vote, a jour- 
ney the cost to the people of which would buy the suffrages 
of one thousand of our worthy African citizens. Our once 
grand old republican party is doomed. Its death is near. 
It deserves to die. It is rotten to the core, gangrened be- 
yond reclaim. Its decadence began with the death of Lin- 
coln when the south killed their best friend. To-day it is 
composed of and harbors and defends the worst element 
in the community, and though backed by the predatory 
press, whose columns are filled with lies and vulgar vitu- 
peration, it fails for the most part to elect its tools to office. 
For the fiat has gone forth that this abomination must be 



298 RETROSPECTION 

destroyed, and upon the debris shall arise a nobler struc- 
ture of purer proportions and brighter promise than 
any which has yet appeared in a republican govern- 
ment. 

Less than two years before his fall the foremost states- 
men of other nations were crying up Porfirio Diaz as the 
greatest statesman of any nation, having accomplished the 
greatest work of any living man. Now all are mute save 
only those who seem not to recognize the difference between 
statesman and revolutionist. 

A nice mess they have made of it, Madero and his crew, 
as any one knowing Mexico could and did foretell. Shallow- 
brained Americans with the others howled upon Diaz as 
he was hustled out of the country for the great crime of 
running a republic which was a republic in name only. 
Now they may try once more the other kind, which means 
internal strife and anarchy perhaps for another half cen- 
tury. 

When too late to serve the nation only by way of ex- 
ample, the character, the strict and true hearted integrity, 
and the earnest patriotism of Porfirio Diaz will be seen 
and understood, and the man valued at his true worth. 

He could not boast like Juarez of pure native blood, un- 
contaminated by any European intermixture, yet he rose 
from his low estate to the highest in the nation, and won 
the respect and confidence of all the nations of Christen- 
dom. 

Prosperity sometimes presents difficult problems. It 
is with nations as with individuals, inordinate wealth be- 
gets luxury and laziness, from which come disease and 
death. Caught in the throes of overweening prosperity the 
United States of Mexico fell on evil times; the United 
States of America is heading in the same direction though 
along different lines. 

At the present moment the best people of the best com- 
munities are working as for their lives for — what? For 



COMPARATIVE REPUBLICANISM 299 

honest and fair republicanism. They are fighting graft, 
high crime, financial and industrial despotism, fighting 
evils which threaten to strangle all that is best in our other- 
wise happy land. They will be known in coming politics 
as the Progressive party. 

Porfirio Diaz, in his enforced resignation from office 
and flight from his native land presents one of the most 
pathetic figures in history. As it is written, "Many good 
works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of 
these works do ye stone me!" 

We have been told before that republics as well as 
princes are ungrateful. All Mexico kicks the carcass of 
the dead lion whose gentle roar so lately sent them shiver- 
ing, while among the baser sort of our own republic are 
found those to yap them on. 

Call it despotism if you like. It is a high and holy 
despotism, a despotism for the well-being of the people, a 
despotism which might beneficially be served in moderate 
doses even to our own model republic, a live impulse, a 
factor for good which should put to shame the senseless 
mummeries of effete monarchies such as Europe delights in. 

The simple mandate of this good despot filled the 
offices of states and federation with good men, while in our 
own less favored land millions of money must be spent in 
electing legislators to invent laws riveting still tighter the 
bonds of a despotism of licentiousness. 

The success of the Madero insurrection incites other 
insurrections, and political and industrial revolutions is 
now as it was before the time of Juarez and Diaz, the nor- 
mal condition of things. 

On the day that Diaz was driven forth there was no 
better befitting government in the world than his, none 
more honest or patriotic. 

Why? 

Because it best met the necessities of the situation ; be- 



300 RETROSPECTION 

cause it was the only sort of government that could rule 
an unruly people; because Diaz was absolutely honest and 
patriotic. 

Revolutionists took up the sword, drove out Diaz and 
took his place; now therefore it will be many days before 
the sword shall depart from the house of Madero, or an- 
archy from the republic of Mexico. 

Under the thirty years of the so-called despotic rule of 
Porfirio Diaz, Mexico emerged from a state of mediaeval 
anarchy, advanced along lines of highest development and 
prospered, intellectually and economically, as few nations 
have ever prospered. Anarchy is again at hand, the prod- 
uct of a selfish and brutalizing despotism such as never 
soiled the garments of Porfirio Diaz. 

And now as if to emphasize the foregoing words, writ- 
ten before the meeting of the Republican convention at 
Chicago in June, 1912, come the disgraceful proceedings 
of that memorable occasion. To see a big fat bovine leave 
the presidential seat and go bellowing about the country 
for votes was bad enough, but when his followers, dishon- 
orable leaders of a once respectable but now thoroughly 
corrupt party, resort to the vilest means, in which thievery 
and low swindling are most conspicuous, to foist upon the 
people a ruler which they do not want, there is scant 
criticism left for Diaz or any of the republican govern- 
ments of Spanish America. And as for the heroes of this 
high achievement, they may return to their homes with 
the brazen front and sickly smile of their leader, yet no 
one knows better than themselves of the moral leprosy they 
carry beneath their raiment. 

For neither in Mexico nor in any other country was 
there ever a greater farce or fraud perpetrated in the name 
of republicanism. The whole course of action, deliberately 
planned and unscrupulously executed, in which trickery 
and robbery played the most conspicuous parts, was such 
as should brand the Taft manipulators with eternal infamy. 



CHAPTER XVII 

EVOLUTION OF A LIBRARY 

PROVIDENCE, free-will, and necessity were the 
phrases a hundred years ago; we now say evolution, 
which sounds if less orthodox more progressive. What we 
mean by them does not so much matter, as it makes little 
difference what one believes as long as one can never know 
anything about it. Spencer and Browning, after Savon- 
arola and Kant, dive deep below the surface workings of 
Shakespeare and Goethe, and revel in subconscious under- 
souls until lost to themselves and others. 

Which means that I hardly know what started me off 
collecting books — trash, my clerks used to call them, as 
they were the sort that never would sell — me, a west-coast 
trafficker in books, handling them as one handles bricks, 
not for the knowledge but for the profit in them. 

Stuff such as one might expect to find in a waste- 
basket, or on the scuttle of coal with the wood to kindle 
the fire; this at the beginning; later this refuse would 
fetch its weight in gold. 

I did not think of that, however, at the time, but only 
that it might be worth something sometime, vaguely, or 
idiotically, as my aforesaid clerks would have expressed 
it, had they dared, surmising a possible intrinsic value — 
in any event like Toodles' coffin, 'andy to 'ave in the 'ouse. 

I suppose I was a crank, if indeed I am not one still. 
I do not know what a crank is, though I should prefer hav- 
ing to tell what it is than what it is not, because as we are 
assured everybody is a little queer. 

As the work of gathering the Bancroft Library was 

301 



302 RETROSPECTION 

long, I will make this account of it short, though the in- 
volving thereof continues, and let us hope, like Bryan in 
search of a presidency, that this collecting may run on 
forever. 

Well, then, I began in 1858 by bringing together all the 
books I could find in my stock on California, extending 
my territory later to the north-west coast, finally taking 
in the western half of North America from Alaska to 
Panama, including the whole of Mexico and Central Amer- 
ica. I searched both continents several times over for his- 
torical material. 

I purchased every book, map, and manuscript written 
or printed within my chosen territory or elsewhere relat- 
ing to it. 

I made many visits to southern California and Spanish 
America, keeping employed there a score of copyists for 
a number of years in the California and Mexican missions 
and national archives. I sent copyists to Alaska and St. 
Petersburg for the same purpose. In my business jour- 
neys east, in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, I kept 
an eye open for anything and everything, good or bad, re- 
lating to my subject and not already on my shelves, for 
there are few books out of which one cannot get some good ; 
and it was easier and cheaper to buy outright and let time 
and use determine the value, than to stop to investigate 
while purchasing as to whether the thing was worth buying 
or not. 

I studied the Mormons at Salt Lake, the Mexicans at 
the lakes of Tenochtitlan, the Hudson Bay people in 
British Columbia, and the early Oregon pioneers by their 
jubilee camp-fires. Crossing the Atlantic I visited many 
times the capitals and universities of Europe, my agents 
attending the public and private sales. All this inter- 
mingled with business and writing history for a period of 
fifty years, and — that is all. 

At least, that will suffice for a skeleton; there can be 
as many volumes employed as one likes in the filling in. 



EVOLUTION OF A LIBRARY 303 

I never was greatly given to fads at any time, least of 
all during these early days when it required the closest 
attention to business to escape disaster. Yet surely at 
first it could have been nothing more to me than a passing 
fancy, this picking up and preserving historical data in- 
trinsically valuable though of no present utility. 

As the collection steadily grew in volume and value, 
that which at first may have been a fad became a fixity, 
and I found myself wondering what I should do with it, 
though I had no thought of ceasing to collect. When after 
a decade of this drifting, amid many fluctuations of mind 
as to potentialities and purposes, I found myself seated at 
a table writing history. The work of collecting then as- 
sumed more definite shape, as besides continuing the 
original ingathering in a general way, there were innumer- 
able gaps to be filled which required special work. It was 
not long, therefore, before I found my work proper inter- 
rupted by what proved to be in the end a series of historical 
journeys to various parts at various times. 

English society in the colonies is more democratic than 
the democratic societies of an earlier day. It is so refresh- 
ing for a time to be free from the stifling atmosphere of 
insular monarchy, with its attendant paraphernalia of 
lords and ladies, of fighting men and gospellers, each with 
a like train of subservients, and all receiving their lunar 
glory from some bedizened George or William. 

At Victoria with my stenographers in 1878, the old 
servants of the Hudson Bay company, chief factors and 
chief traders as well as the early settlers, explorers and 
missionaries came from a distance to see me. They seemed 
to realize the importance of my efforts, and were quite par- 
ticular to have their life work set down correctly, some- 
times quarrelling with each other to the verge of combat 
over the validity of a date or incident, so that finally in- 
stead of receiving them together I admitted them singly. 

Sir James, chief factor and governor, had passed away 



304 RETROSPECTION 

before my visit, but Lady Douglas was in evidence, always 
attended by some of her relatives, but so bleached by civili- 
zation as scarcely to be recognized as an American abor- 
iginal. 

Why is it that England is so much better served by her 
distant agents than the United States is served whether 
at home or abroad? One can doubtless account for some 
part of it but not for all. First, England rewards and 
punishes more promptly. Spain was badly served, even 
in her best days; she seldom rewarded, but was quick in 
punishing, often inflicting the penalty before the offense. 

It was a difficult position, and Sir James filled it with 
credit, that of acting at once for the fur company and for 
the government during the transition period from chartered 
traders to a provisional government, the interests of the 
former being to hold the country in savagery fit for fur- 
hunting as long as possible, while the inrush of gold- 
hunters was forcing open the wilderness to English occupa- 
tion. 

Lady Douglas placed at my disposal her late husband's 
papers, while Governor Richards and the then chief 
factor of the Hudson Bay company gave me access to their 
respective archives. 

A church of England missionary to the Cariboo country 
spent a month with me here, a month of midnights, or say 
the thirty and one nights, as he came to me only at night, 
remaining usually till break of day, talking clearly, elo- 
quently, and continuously, interrupting himself only by 
sipping brandy and water, which seemed to brighten rather 
than befog his brain as the night wore on. He was one of the 
best and purest of men, and his fascinating recitals proved 
an invaluable contribution to the history of that period. 

The hospitality I was obliged to extend to the fur com- 
pany's officials and old settlers, usually in the form of 
whiskey and gin, in order to attract them to my rooms, 
proved too much for their pugnacious dispositions, and 
brought to a close our intercourse. 



EVOLUTION OF A LIBRARY 305 

Sir Matthew Begbie was a boy on the playground but 
the stern chief justice on the bench. I sat in his court 
through one or two criminal cases, and it was refreshing 
the freedom from cant, browbreating, and pettifogging so 
common in some places. Justice Begbie would permit no 
trickery or trifling; least of all was he disposed to search 
for technicalities to defeat the ends of justice. Once only 
during my presence in his courtroom did he feel called 
upon to reprove a counsel, but this he did in no slight 
measure. "I cannot understand, sir, how you have the 
temerity to offer before any respectable tribunal, for the 
consideration of any judge whom you can accredit with 
common sense, to say nothing of legal acumen, such non- 
sense as you have interwoven in your argument. Let us 
have no more of it. ' ' 

On my way down the coast I saw some of Seattle's 
people, the old chief having departed for his heavenly 
hunting-ground, and also the white men who had held early 
intercourse with him. 

Entering Oregon at that day from either side was like 
coming into another country. Portland was more like an 
eastern city than any in California. There were present 
many New York and New England people, orthodox re- 
ligionists, congregationalists and methodists largely, over- 
flowings from the economic efforts of the Willamette val- 
ley missionaries. For public spirit and integrity the 
merchants and bankers of Portland had nowhere their 
superior, while the newspaper press was truthful and ef- 
ficient, more so then than later. 

A pleasant custom in vogue were the camp-fire rendez- 
vous of the early immigrants and their families every year 
at Salem, where a week's life in the open, with talking and 
dancing, was a whole year's solace to their souls. 

There was an intelligent Russian, Ivan Petrof, who 
came to my Library out of the civil war, whom I found 
useful and on the whole faithful. 



306 RETROSPECTION 

He translated into English all my Russian material, 
that being the only language in my Library that required 
such service. 

It is quite remarkable the Slavonic aptitude for acquir- 
ing languages. When he went into the war this man could 
not speak a word of English; before he left the army he 
was writing letters home for American soldiers who were 
either disabled or had never learned to write. 

I had a little Pole also, — he said he was a nobleman at 
home, he called himself Nemos in my library, — who was 
never at a loss in any language. Another skilful linguist 
was Alphonse Pinart, a Frenchman, the son of a Paris 
banker, a noted savant, and the author of several ethno- 
logical works. He spent several years roaming through 
Mexico and Central America picking up priceless treasures 
from the monks and others, making the most unique collec- 
tion of any except Andrade's, and which was finally joined 
to my own and passed over with it to the university of 
California. 

When charged to his face with a knowledge of fifty 
Indian languages, Pinart would not deny it. Why should 
he? He spent one winter in Alaska living in the under- 
ground house of an Eskimo, studying the origin of the 
Indians. He came down to San Francisco satisfied. 
''They came over from Asia," he said with a sober counte- 
nance. 

How many times we have seen this same farce, and 
similar ones elsewhere, enacted by college professors and 
members of learned societies sent out by rich men whose 
money might thus gain for them a cheap reputation for 
scientific tastes, the learned men and their wealthy patrons 
alike failing to see the absurdity of telling out of hand the 
origin of the American Indians. 

In the Bancroft Library at Berkeley is a book entitled 
rig en de los Indios, giving some forty or fifty theories 
promulgated by learned men of various ages and nations 



EVOLUTION OF A LIBRARY 307 

as to the whence and wherefore of these aboriginals, which 
are so like each other yet so unlike any other race. 

As it is a question which never can be answered, it is 
like the diving anywhere into the unknowable and coming 
up with a dogmatic answer which must put an end to con- 
troversy. 

When the doctor taps on your chest, puts his ear to 
your back, tweaks your nose, and then speaks out boldly 
and loud, "The trouble with you, Sir, is ticdouloureux, " 
who shall dare to gainsay him? 

Consider the claim set up so elaborately by Lord Kings- 
borough in his nine mammoth folios which cost him his 
mind and his fortune, and afterward adopted by the Mor- 
mons, that all the aboriginal tribes of North and South 
America were Jews, that is to say the veritable ten lost 
tribes of Israel who wandered away upon the dispersion 
from the tower of Babel. 

This theory is susceptible of greater elaboration than 
any other, not because these savages were more like the 
Jews than any other people, but because there is more of 
early manners and customs in the Hebrew writings than is 
found elsewhere regarding any other people. 

Some say the native Americans were Irish, or English, 
or Scandinavians who crossed over to America by way of 
Iceland and Greenland, and we know that the Norseman 
did make such voyages at an early period. 

Some maintain that the Indians came from Portugal; 
some say Italy, others Asia ; some maintain that they came 
from Africa, and others from any and every quarter of the 
earth, and who shall say that it was not so or that they 
were not autochthonic in their origin ? 

It scarcely requires the penetration of a French savant, 
or a Columbia college professor, to decide that the Aleuts 
and Esquimos came from Asia, when one can see them any 
day crossing Bering strait in their bidarkas or skating 
across on the ice. 



308 RETROSPECTION 

True, the Eskimos skirt the north pole ; they are a race 
by themselves and the only one in all the two Americas 
not related to the Indians. But if the Eskimos can cross 
so freely, surely the rest of the world can do the same. 

Further, we have found in these later times, far below 
the strait of Bering, Japanese junks wrecked on the coast 
of California, and the Chinese and South Sea islanders 
could easily enough follow the trade winds from point 
to point across the ocean to Mexico or to South America. 
But first of all it should be shown that they had come from 
Europe or Asia, or the old world at all, or that America 
herself is not the old world sending over Abraham and 
Lot to people Palestine. 

This sort of learning is like the good clergyman's answer 
to the question some one put to him as to what evidence 
there is of the immortality of the soul. He said he had 
noticed that what men ardently longed for they usually ob- 
tained, and as they all wanted to live forever they would 
probably do so. The answer, no doubt, satisfied his congre- 
gation, but what did he himself think of it? 

But perhaps some of us do not want to live forever, 
having had quite enough of it in this world. And how 
about Satan who longed ardently to rule in heaven, and 
so many of his followers who want so much to be healthy, 
wealthy, wise, powerful, and so on; and why should we 
die at all if ardently desiring perpetual life would give it 
us? True, Rockefeller ardently longs for all the oil, and 
as he secured the most of it he must be near heaven and 
happy. The truth is our parson had no shadow of evidence 
to offer but did not like to say so. 

Simple facts, however, do not satisfy latter-day in- 
vestigators, who perforce must dive into the depths of pro- 
fundity and stir up the dregs. 

Quite different was my work in the south, in California, 
Mexico, and Central America, though the object was the 
same, to gather and garner further knowledge, but more 



EVOLUTION OF A LIBRARY 309 

especially to fill gaps in the material for my history such 
as would enable me to give continuous narratives of per- 
sons, places, and things. 

I went to General Vail e jo, at Sonoma, with a hundred 
questions which he could answer better than any one else; 
to some of them, indeed, no one else could give an explana- 
tion. He was not communicative at first. The Hispano- 
Californians of that day fancied themselves ill-treated by 
the Americans, and they were not far from right. 

The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo upon the cession of 
the California country guaranteed the rights of property 
to all the inhabitants. The proper thing for the United 
States government then to have done was to appoint a com- 
mission, have the occupied lands surveyed and titles estab- 
lished, the government assuming the burden of proof. 
Instead, the owners were called upon to come forward and 
prove their titles. This they could not do. Many of them 
had received no written deed with their grant. Boundaries 
were loosely defined, and witnesses were difficult or im- 
possible to obtain. Lawyers were called in, and long and 
expensive investigation followed. The usual fee for secur- 
ing to the occupant a title was half of the land, while with 
a bill of extras he might easily sweep up the other half, so 
that many of the Mexican families lost their all; while he 
was not much of a lawyer in those days who had not a 
Mexican grant in his pocket, the title to which his client 
had paid for. 

It was then and for this alleged purpose, namely, the 
quieting of titles to pueblo and mission lands and Mexi- 
can grants, that the archives of all the missions and pueblos 
were ordered sent to the United States surveyor general's 
office at San Francisco, where all papers appertaining to 
the matters in hand were retained, and the remainder re- 
turned. Three hundred bulky volumes were the result of 
this gleaning and collating, and so valuable were they for 
my history that I felt it necessary to have the information 

they contained ready at hand for use in my library. 
11 



310 RETROSPECTION 

I could not borrow the volumes, as it would be irregular 
for them to be out of the surveyor general's office, and I 
could not use them at arm's length. So I rented a room 
adjoining those of the surveyor general, who kindly con- 
sented to consider the volumes while there and under his 
control as still in his office. In this room I placed a dozen 
kitchen tables and chairs, and at them as many Mexican 
copyists and epitomists. This work I gave in charge to 
Mr. Savage, my most valued expert in Mexican mustiness, 
who went carefully through the mass of documents, mark- 
ing some to be copied entire, some to be partially copied, 
and others to be epitomized. These copies were then bound 
together, after proper classification, into some seventy 
volumes, I think it was. This work not only satisfied my 
historical requirements, so far as these archives were con- 
cerned, but was most important as a public benefit in safe- 
guarding the contents of this collection in case of the 
destruction of the original papers by fire. 

I say that General Vallejo and all the Spanish Cali- 
fornia families were shy of Yankee protestations and sin- 
cerity of purpose, and such was the influence of this man 
that I could hope to do but little with his countrymen while 
he held aloof. I must therefore win him over by some 
means. 

I found myself obliged to lay diplomatic siege to this 
whilom guardian of the frontier; the result would de- 
termine my success or failure with the whole fraternity of 
grant holders of historic lore from San Francisco bay to 
San Diego. 

"With me at this time in my army of assistants was a 
sporty Italian, sharp in feature and slight in stature, lithe 
as a cat and as tricky as Ruef upon occasion, though I must 
say that he always proved true to me. True, poor fellow! 
except on one occasion, when he killed himself because of 
inability to meet his obligations in mining-stock specula- 
tions without acquainting me of his intentions. He surely 
knew that I would help him through if he would confide 



EVOLUTION OF A LIBRARY 311 

his troubles in me, as aside from the value of his services I 
had a strong liking for the fellow, for he was a winsome 
little rascal; but death cancels debt and covers dishonor; 
at least that is the Latin idea of it, and a foolish one it is. 

Cerruti was his name, General Cerruti he called him- 
self; said he had been consul-general in Central America, 
had been engaged in numberless revolutions there, from 
one of which he had fled for his life to San Francisco, and 
turned himself up in my library. 

After a formal visit of a day and a night at Sonoma, 
and the return of it by the whole Vallejo fraternity in a 
six weeks ' stay at my house in San Francisco,— it was the 
way of these innocents, ask one and they all came to the 
last of the cousins and aunts, and to terminate the festivities 
I had to be called away on important business. After all these 
courtesies and blandishments, as the old general still re- 
mained evasive if not obdurate, I turned the matter over to 
the Italian, who opened the campaign by making love to 
two of the general's daughters. 

The battles of the general — consul-general — hero of a 
hundred revolutions, his adventures by devious ways, would 
fill a volume, and are given at some length in my Literary 
Industries; suffice it to say here that in due time he brought 
round the other general — commandante-general — in fine 
style, making of him from that time forth one of my most 
devoted disciples. Cerruti spent a year with him exclu- 
sively, most of the time at Monterey, writing a Historia de 
California by M. G. Vallejo, in five volumes, folio, covering 
the time from the author's first appearance in the country 
— he was born in California in 1800 — to the year 1847. 

The two generals meanwhile had converted Governor 
Alvarado, and a similar Historia de California was written 
out for him, and bearing his name. Many others of the 
early California families up and down the coast, all of the 
important ones, were visited by Cerruti and Vallejo, also 
later by Mr. Savage and others of my corps, which re- 
sulted in a harvest of dictations and documents, the Vallejo 



312 RETROSPECTION 

collection alone amounting to fifty large volumes with 
thousands of important original documents. 

It is not my intention here to enter into details regard- 
ing the development of my library, for say what I might 
I never could give an adequate impression of the labor per- 
formed during these years of bibliographic obsession, the 
days of intricate endeavor and nights of anxiety ; wherefore 
let it pass. 

Still continuing my role as collector of books in detail, 
even to the minutest scrap containing valuable informa- 
tion, I became a collector of libraries, securing at least 
twenty other important collections, and twice as many 
minor ones, notably that of Seiior Don Jose Fernando Ra- 
mairez, eminent state and federal judge of the city of 
Durango and president of the emperor Maximilian's first 
ministry, in which were many rare and costly books and 
unpublished manuscripts; that of E. G. Squier, United 
States minister to Central America, and author of several 
important ethnographical works and books of travel; that 
of Elwood Evans, lawyer and litterateur of Olympia, 
Puget Sound, and author of an unpublished manuscript 
History of Oregon w T hich came in with the collection; that 
of Mr. Pinart, the distinguished Americaniste before men- 
tioned, that of M. G. Vallejo in his house at Sonoma not 
included in his gatherings with Cerruti; that of Benjamin 
Hayes of San Diego, formerly district judge at Los Angeles, 
and collector of historical data since long before the advent 
of the Anglo-Americans; that of Isaac Bluxome, executive 
officer of the two great popular tribunals, the San Fran- 
cisco vigilance committees of 1851 and 1856, his identity 
being hidden in the dread signature "33 Secretary,' ' the 
collection consisting mainly of the archives and papers and 
manuscripts pertaining to the vigilance committees; that 
of Manuel Castro, an able and efficient officer on the Mexican 
side in the war for the Anglo-American conquest of Cali- 
fornia and the Bear Flag movement, and consistiog almost 
entirely of valuable papers and manuscripts, nearly all of 



EVOLUTION OF A LIBRARY 313 

them in Spanish ; those of several of the Hudson Bay com- 
pany 's posts in British Columbia and Alaska, being chiefly 
papers, narratives, and fur-trading annals in the great north- 
west ; that of Caleb Cushing, being selections from his col- 
lections sold by auction in Boston in 1879; that of Don 
Juan Osio, formerly judge and governor of Lower Cali- 
fornia, and author of an unpublished historical dissertation, 
throwing much light on times and events of which there 
is no other existing record; that of Sir James Douglas, 
Hudson Bay company's governor of British Columbia, 
containing among other valuable manuscripts the unpub- 
lished adventures of John Stuart, at Stuart Lake, and 
Simon Fraser in his descent of Fraser river; that of the 
French Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, resident of Spanish 
America for twenty-five years, and author of several works 
on Mexico; that of Placido Vega, general commanding un- 
der President Juarez during the French intervention, con- 
sisting of public and private documents; that of Thomas 
0. Larkin, United States consul at Monterey prior to the 
acquisition of California, the collection consisting of a large 
and very valuable mass of documents and records of of- 
ficial correspondence during the important period from 
1844 to 1849 ; Russian material from Innokentie, metro- 
politan of Moscow, Iohan Veniaminof, missionary to the 
Aleuts, Admiral Liitke, and Etholine, formerly governor 
of the Russian American possessions; these and many 
others, all of them being collections made by prominent 
and educated personages, mainly from their love of litera- 
ture and appreciation of the value of historical data which 
but for them would have been forever lost. 

Most important of all was the Maximilian library, a 
collection made by Don Juan Andrade during a period of 
thirty-eight years of continuous effort, drawn largely from 
the monks and monasteries of Spanish America, and sold 
or to be sold to the Maximilian government as the founda- 
tion of an imperial library of Mexico. Upon the death of 
the unfortunate emperor, fearing lest his books should be 



314 RETROSPECTION 

seized by the incoming powers and the results of his life 
labor be lost, Andrade hurried them off to Vera Cruz on the 
backs of 200 mules, and thence to Leipsic, where they were 
sold by auction, my agent purchasing some 6,000 volumes 
of the rarest and most precious books and manuscripts 
relating to my subject in existence. 

Thus it is seen that my collection is not the work of one 
man alone, but of many men, working in widely separated 
fields, each unknown to the others, but all to the same end, 
the massing of early historical data covering an area equal 
to one-twelfth of the earth's surface, and whereon is now 
being planted a civilization second to none the earth has 
ever seen. 

All this time there was carried on a constant ingather- 
ing from many different sources. With abundant means 
at my command, and the disposition to employ them in 
what had ere this become a most absorbing occupation, I 
was able to accomplish in a brief half-century what no 
government or society would have accomplished in ten 
centuries, that is to say what otherwise never would have 
been accomplished. Besides the ancient lore brought forth 
from nooks and corners, every book relating to the subject, 
published in any language in any part of the world, was 
immediately purchased and placed on my shelves. 

At the best a collector, whether of books, coins, or china, 
whether of railroads, banks, oil fields, or iron mines, is a 
creature sui generis. He may be a benefactor of the race, 
or a fool, or both, and none the less benefactor because 
fool, none the less genuine because a sham, because he 
fancies he is deceiving all the world while deceiving only 
himself. 

With the wealthy collector of curios and painting the 
impelling force is usually vanity pure and simple, the de- 
sire to be credited with taste or discernment which he does 
not possess. Banks and railroads may be gathered in from 
love of power or from cupidity; to try to get all the oil or 
all the iron is greed. 



EVOLUTION OF A LIBRARY 315 

A bibliomaniac invests a book with a personality not 
discernible by the world at large. There are those who 
will steal a book who will not steal money. 

One does not give $50,000 for a bible to read when a 
fifty cent one has better print; and why should the Bed- 
ford library fix the price of Fox's Book of Martyrs, con- 
taining John Bunyan's autograph, at only $440,000 when 
the valuers might as easily have written down $880,000. 

It is not true that a thing is worth all it will fetch, and 
will not be so until the more rabid collectors shall have 
passed away. 

If I may here summarize the salient points in this 
fascinating labor of collecting I will therewith close this 
chapter. 

The opportunity will never again occur for securing 
so large an amount of material regarding a region of such 
wide extent, — one-twelfth of the earth's surface, — at so 
early a period of its history. 

I was on the ground and began operations late enough 
for history to have begun, but not so late that I could not 
learn all that had occurred from the beginning. It is easily 
understood, therefore, that as all these several concurring 
conditions will never again appear simultaneously, so no 
other country can ever have a similar labor performed in 
its behalf. 

It is not probable such an undertaking would ever be 
accomplished by a public institution, because to be effective 
it must be begun at or near the beginning of history, and 
prosecuted with enthusiasm and vigor continuously without 
regard to cost of time or money for a long period of years. 

Elaborate work was also done in the way of originating 
or creating material wherever such a course was deemed 
advisable. The time for this was opportune. There were 
throughout this vast area hundreds of prominent men mak- 
ing history, each in his own way and in his own locality, 
and many of these experiences, personally or through 



316 RETROSPECTION 

agents or employes, I wrote down, taking their words from 
their own mouth, thus bringing their narratives into my 
collection in the form of manuscript dictations. 

Some of these manuscripts covered but a few pages, 
others filled several volumes. Indeed whole histories were 
sometimes written in this way, where the personage and 
the period were deemed of sufficient importance, as in the 
case of Vallejo, before mentioned, and Juan B. Alvardo, 
last Mexican governor of Alta California, each writing, in 
Spanish, at the hand of an amanuensis furnished by me, 
an independent work from his own point of view. 

Such, briefly are some of the ways and means by which 
this remarkable collection of American historical data, and 
this series of written histories have come into being. It 
can now readily be understood what would have been 
difficult to make plain at the beginning of this narration, 
namely : — 

First, that this collection contains more of original 
American historical data than any other library in existence. 
Second, that it is not only the largest collection of 
original American historical data in the world, but without 
this collection no other collection can ever hope to equal it. 
Third, that no collection of equal magnitude was ever 
before made by a single individual, at such cost of time and 
money, or with equal care, thoroughness, and discrimina- 
tion. 

Fourth, that no state or nation in the world has had its 
early annals so gathered and preserved as has thus been 
done for the states and nations of western North America. 
Fifth, that this being a collection of purely west- Ameri- 
can historical material, and the collections of others 
working in the same field for the first half-century and 
more of national existence being merged by purchase into 
this collection, obviously there is little left elsewhere for 
another to gather, no millions of money being able to re- 
produce it or to purchase another like it. 

It is not too much to claim that my historical writings 



EVOLUTION OF A LIBRARY 317 

have doubled the value of this collection, and the collec- 
tion largely increases the value of the history, as in the 
way of notes, references and indexes it has made possible 
the handling of the whole mass, or any portion of it, by 
future students and investigators, for the innumerable 
purposes which will arise in the future. In other words, 
the history compelled me to index the whole library, thus 
making it at once available to the individual scholar as well 
as to a corps of literary workers. 

Apart from its value as literary data, its practical use- 
fulness has already been manifested in determining ques- 
tions of fact involving large public and private property 
interests. 

With pardonable pride Californians may ever regard 
these treasures. Since the days of the early Egyptians 
men have collected books and made libraries, searching the 
world over and vying with each other, men with men 
and nations with nations, to have the largest and best, and 
yet here in California, during the brief period of our ex- 
istence, in these most important particulars we have out- 
stripped them all. 

Thus it may be seen that a great library is not like a 
Carnegie building obtainable to order; it is not a work of 
creation but of development. It is not an article of brief 
manufacture but of long continuous growth, springing up 
ofttimes spontaneously, and nourishing in the sunshine per- 
haps, or it may be hidden in the shade. Nor may the term 
great be restricted to bulk alone. Money will quickly buy 
in London books enough to fill an ocean liner, and though 
the mass of printed matter were great it could in no sense 
be rightly called a great library. On the other hand, a 
collection of books made systematically and thoroughly 
along intelligent lines for a well-defined and praiseworthy 
purpose, at the cost of a lifetime of labor and the requisite 
amount of money, may truly be called great, though the 
number of volumes thus brought together be not more than 
enough to half fill that same ocean liner. 



318 RETROSPECTION 

Neither is an empty building a library, howsoever deeply 
graven in stone over the portals the words may be which 
so affirm it. The way certain founders of libraries have 
of late of erecting a building, giving to it the name desired, 
and then leaving it to time and chance to supply the books 
if not actually dishonest is not praiseworthy. The collection 
usually made under such circumstances, beginning with gov- 
ernment reports and garret emptyings, and ending in dime 
contributions and tea sociables is hardly worth the housing. 
In the formation of a library, common sense and common 
honesty would say spend ten dollars for good books and 
one dollar for housing them, rather than the reverse. 

In 1883 I erected on Valencia street a fire-proof library 
building and moved my collection into it, since which time 
the Bancroft building on Market street, whence it was taken, 
has been twice burned to the ground while the library 
still lives. Later the collection passed to the University of 
California, at Berkeley, where it has found permanent 
lodgment. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

METHODS OP WRITING HISTORY 

GRADUALLY as the historical material relative to 
western North America grew upon my hands I be- 
gan to think more and more of its ultimate disposition. I 
began to feel that the original incentive, of which indeed 
there had been but little, would scarcely justify the ever- 
increasing proportions which the fad or fancy had assumed. 
If I had drifted into the affair merely to see how many 
marbles I could get, I began to think that I had about 
enough, all that my pockets would hold. 

I considered for a time putting my gathered informa- 
tion into encyclopedic form, of making what might serve 
as a Pacific Coast supplement to any or all American or 
European publications. I spoke to several of my friends 
about it, and even went so far as to decide in my own mind 
whom I should have for editor to take charge of the work 
and become responsible for its accuracy, and what persons 
there were I might avail myself of for his collaborators; 
but I finally dismissed the idea as one not sufficiently sat- 
isfying. 

Then I thought of establishing a great daily newspaper, 
to be placed upon a plane above any other in America, one 
which should deal in truthfulness and honorable endeavor, 
and eschew pretense, vituperation, and every shade of 
blackmail. I thought I could see a way in this of making 
good use of my library in having always at command the 
sources of multiform enterprise as well as the developments 
of the day. 

I would choose for my aim the best European model, 

319 



320 RETROSPECTION 

say The Times, of London, modernized, made American, 
or better Californian, the old Thunderer but defossilized. 
I sounded several persons upon the subject, and my project 
leaked out, when presently, not at all to my chagrin, for I 
was by no means sure of my footing, I found that others 
had stepped in and appropriating my plans were getting 
ready to do the work. Not long afterward The Times news- 
paper, with a facsimile heading of the London Times, was 
started in San Francisco. It ran for five months when it 
collapsed. 

More and more the desire to achieve results grew within 
me. I ran my mind repeatedly over what might be under- 
taken with my resources. I had many valuable manuscripts 
giving the efforts and achievements of men first in the 
field to break the ground for the building of new empire. 
I might edit and print a series of a hundred or more of 
these manuscripts, which would be of value in the various 
libraries of the world. 

Still I was not satisfied. Slowly the more ambitious 
idea of history crept through my mind, but only to be re- 
jected as beyond my capabilities. I loved work, and I did 
not care for money, but I abhorred failure. 

My business was prosperous, and I felt secure that it 
w T ould bring me in whatever means I should require for 
any reasonable purpose. Meanwhile as traffic in the city 
was drifting southward, and my quarters at Montgomery 
and Merchant streets, even with additional storage rooms 
on Clay street, were restricted, I concluded to let my his- 
torical instincts lie fallow while I provided a more suitable 
housing for my book business. 

I determined to build ; but to obtain a suitable site was 
the first consideration. There was but one direction open 
to me. I started from where I stood and canvassed every 
piece of property on both sides of Montgomery street to 
Market. They were all out of the question, being cut up 
into small holdings with substantial buildings on them. I 



METHODS OF WRITING HISTORY 321 

continued out Market street. Lots on the north side were 
too angular and inconvenient for my purpose. Finally on 
the south side of Market street, between Third and Fourth 
streets, I found a place where possibly I might get in an 
entering wedge. 

At first there was only one lot available, twenty-five by 
one hundred feet. A four-story frame building stood on 
it, and the price was thirty thousand dollars. This was in 
1869. I found I could get two lots in the rear, fronting on 
Stevenson street, each twenty by seventy feet, for six thou- 
sand dollars each. A Frenchman owned the twenty feet 
adjoining for which he demanded twelve thousand dollars. 
The two lots adjoining on Market street belonged to Mr. 
Somers, who did not wish to sell, but in order to secure a 
good building for the block he kindly consented to move 
southward, provided he could get the same space on the 
same side of Market opposite Dupont street. 

I obtained options on every thing, including the French- 
man 's lot, and gathered my company early one day into 
Mr. Tobin's office over the Hibernia bank, then at the cor- 
ner of Montgomery and Market streets. There were five 
transactions to be consummated, the failure of any one of 
which would spoil the whole. Suffice it to say that after a 
long day of some anxiety the sales and purchases were satis- 
factorily completed. 

Some time afterward having occasion to borrow some 
portion of the money for building, with Mr. Tobin's ab- 
stract of title I applied to Mr. Burr of the San Francisco 
Savings and Loan Society. Yes, I could have the money, a 
hundred thousand dollars, at eleven per cent, per annum 
and eight hundred dollars lawyers' fees for passing upon 
the title. 

As Mr. Burr was not a lawyer, and as the somewhat 
intricate title had already been firmly established by a com- 
petent person, Mr. James de Fremery, a director in the 
Burr bank, took exceptions to Burr's methods, withdrew 
from the bank, and organized the San Francisco Savings 



322 RETROSPECTION 

Union upon equitable principles, with Lovell White and 
Alexander Campbell as cashier and attorney respectively, 
and whose dealings, like those of their neighbor the Ger- 
man Savings and Loan Society, have ever been examples 
of high integrity. A generation has passed away and the 
old Burr bank and the de Fremery bank may now be seen 
united as the Savings Union bank of San Francisco at 
Grant avenue and Market street. 

Upon the completion of the Market street building I 
placed my library on the top floor with a man in charge. 
I was then obliged to give my whole attention for a time to 
business. I had allowed prosperity of late to carry me 
along a little too fast. The completion of the overland 
railroad had upturned and disarranged matters to the dis- 
comfiture of some and the ruin of others. To a few it was 
a benefit; to many it brought disaster. 

In the first place, in anticipation of what the railroad 
would do for the country business had expanded and real- 
estate values had become inflated. Sales were extensive, 
much borrowed capital being used. And now when every- 
body wanted to sell and settle up, prices dropped and trans- 
actions became limited. 

The arbitrary action of the railroad men intensified 
distress. All at once they had become masters of men, and 
all the people were their enemy. Inquiry was met by in- 
sult; it would be a poor railroad man who should give to 
a passenger a civil answer. The law was laid down regard- 
ing freight charges, and a system of espionage inaugurated. 
A scale of charges was established, and to secure the lowest 
rate the merchant must get his goods all out by rail; he 
should not lend his advantages to another; he could not 
bring goods over the line for one who used Cape Horn ves- 
sels or the Isthmus route; he should not sell goods to any 
one not a favored patron of the railroad, and so on. 

In place of the palmy days so long anticipated when 
every one was to be rich and happy, California suddenly 



METHODS OF WRITING HISTORY 323 

found herself under a cloud of commercial despotism such 
as would cause a feudal baron to blush with shame. Re- 
venge, too, was sweet, and all who had offended during the 
period of construction were made to suffer. Reprisal was 
the order of the day. Towns as well as individuals were 
placed under ban. It was not forgotten or forgiven of San 
Francisco that the citizens had preferred to give six hun- 
dred thousand dollars rather than take stock where they 
had no confidence either in the enterprise or in the men 
who managed it. 

Finally, the books of all doing business with the rail- 
road should be open to the inspection of its agents at all 
times. But all this I have presented in a former chapter 
of this Retrospection. 

An unlooked for pusillanimity, I am sorry to say, ap- 
peared among the people. There were but few of them of 
the old stock ; aliens had come in ; even the old merchants 
were afraid; some failed, others declined business and de- 
parted from the country; there was no talk of tearing up 
the rails and hanging the offenders as might have been 
heard in times past; they did not even band for mutual 
protection, these timid traffickers, as the men of Chicago 
had done; there was too much of the subservient blood of 
Europe in their veins; each was looking out for his own 
safety. 

And so continued this tyranny with certain modifica- 
tions for a period of forty years, until as we hope the end 
has come, and for which let us thank God and Governor 
Johnson. 

The hard times held in check historical aspirations. In 
common with others who had anticipated a rich harvest 
on the completion of the railroad, my affairs had become 
unduly expanded. Besides building on Market street, and 
adding manufacturing in all its branches to an already 
extensive mercantile business, organized with a score of 
departments each under a competent head, I had erected 
an elegant dwelling at California and Franklin streets, 



324 RETROSPECTION 

getting out hard-wood finish from New York, roofing-slate 
from Vermont, and tiles and stained glass from England. 

Anticipating an advance in prices of real-estate, I had 
bought lots farther out on Market street which I could not 
now sell except at a serious loss. But suffice it to say, with 
some battlings and many bad quarters of an hour I 
weathered the storm, which indeed had finally swept over 
the whole financial world, and came out into the open sun- 
shine again little the worse for the conflict. And with 
what is usually regarded as justifiable pride in a merchant, 
I should like here to remark, that in all my business career 
I have never failed to pay a just debt nor asked for an ex- 
tension. 

I began to consider seriously declining business alto- 
gether, or at least so much of it as might seriously inter- 
fere with my history-writing, which I had now firmly re- 
solved to undertake. I had been long enough bound down 
to working only for money, and the occupation had become 
distasteful to me. I had no expensive indulgences, and I 
had money enough both for my family and for carrying 
on my historical investigations. And, although but for 
this infatuation I should have more to spend and should 
have been able to save up some millions for my children — 
for I could always make and save money when I tried — 
yet from first to last there never was one among them who 
was not more enthusiastic in my historical aspirations, and 
more solicitous for me to proceed, and more confident 
of my success than ever was I myself. 

I never imagined that any thing I might accomplish 
would possess any high degree of merit other than that of 
absolute reliability. The simple truth in plain language 
was all I aimed at, and if any doubted my judgment or 
questioned my inferences, there before the reader should be 
the sources of my information from which he might draw 
his own conclusions. I had no imaginary axes to grind, 
no ulterior ambition in view. 



METHODS OF WRITING HISTORY 325 

As a financial proposition I was publisher enough to 
know that such work did not pay, and poorly equipped as 
I was in ability and experience I never hoped to achieve 
fame. I appreciated the situation only so far as to see that 
howsoever crude might be my effort, there was here an 
opportunity to do for this western America more extensive 
and complete work than had ever been accomplished for 
any other country in the way of gathering and preserving 
its early history. I was here upon the scene at the psycho- 
logical moment, able and willing to do an important work 
which no one else would undertake and which could not 
be done later. 

I had always possessed a strong predilection for achiev- 
ing something in literature. I should engage in this work, 
if at all, purely for the love of it, and in the hope that it 
might prove useful. It was personal gratification alone 
that prompted me ; it was purely a love of literature, a de- 
sire to do something more in the world than buying and 
selling and getting gain that urged me on as an impelling 
force to this undertaking, and this was the only reward I 
ever promised myself or expected. 

Nor was I slow to appreciate my further advantages, 
which I might recognize without egotism. I was in pos- 
session of the means wherewith to accomplish my purposes. 
I had sufficiently emancipated myself from business as to 
give me the time I required. I was full of my subject, and 
full of enthusiasm regarding it. And finally I could devote 
to it, if my life should be spared, the energy and intel- 
ligence which gave me to know what I wished to accom- 
plish, and the singleness of purpose and directness of ap- 
plication of one mind for a series of years without the inter- 
ference of government officials or board of directors. 

I am quite sure that the main object in my mind in the 
reduction of this mass of material to practical proportions, 
and placing its contents in print in the form of historical 
narration was that it should be useful to the present and 



326 RETROSPECTION 

future generations laboring in the many fields which it 
covered. 

I knew that if I shirked or neglected this task it would 
never be done, but that masses of valuable knowledge would 
be thrown away as impossible of utilization and so lost to 
the world forever. As it turned out I have only to refer the 
reader to the solid pages in my history of references to 
the books and manuscripts in my library, thus brought 
forward into the light and made to live in literature. No 
one would ever have been insane enough to make such an 
attempt without the ways and means at hand to carry it 
through. 

In writing of the present or proximate times the wise 
historian will confine himself as nearly as possible to a 
simple narration of events without speculation and without 
dogmatizing. Opinions too strongly asserted are seldom 
free from prejudice. The best work for a historian of his 
own time is to state facts and give the authorities. No such 
work can be worthless. 

I thus realized that with this wealth of material some- 
thing important could be done, but what or how I could 
not tell, and long after the business of the day was over 
my mind would dwell upon the subject until it became an 
obsession. 

I saw at once that without assistance I could accomplish 
but little, and the question was how to utilize the work of 
others in historical research. What could I do ? Here was 
work for twenty men for twenty years — and in truth it 
proved to be in the end much more than that. It made my 
head ache and my heart sink to think of it. 

Confronted by mixed masses of material, 16,000 books 
maps and manuscripts rapidly increasing to 60,000, with 
500 broken files of newspapers amounting in numbers to 
many thousands, in various languages, issued at widely 
different dates and places running through the century, 
their contents invaluable as relating to early events — this 
for the material; as for the men or machinery wherewith 



METHODS OF WRITING HISTORY 327 

to reduce the mass to manageable proportions, there were 
none. 

Nothing at hand available to attack the proposition, or 
even to throw out hints of how it might be done. Even 
had there been present all the learning and experience of 
the universities of Europe and America, of what avail 
were it? Of what avail in this quagmire of erudition 
were gentlemen of the old school, accustomed only to pluck 
flowers of philosophy along the beaten paths of knowledge 
made pleasant by the mediations of many who had gone 
before; of what avail the expert master of psychological 
mysteries for a plunge into this murky mass, therefrom, 
as he would say, to reflect adequately the deep human sig- 
nificance and scientific importance of the collective life 
which should be there? 

Psychological speculations upon the action of mankind 
under given conditions, with economic elucidations as to 
what is and will be, howsoever interesting and profitable 
for the student is not all of history. The many able pro- 
fessors in our universities who stand in the world's front 
rank as analysts of human phenomena should not forget 
those who have gone before, that the field of their specula- 
tions has been many times written over from various view- 
points, and that without this labor of others they could 
have accomplished but little; that in every line they write 
they are in a measure applying the thoughts and accom- 
plishments of others to their own elaborations. 

This is one of the many emergencies I had to meet in 
my literary exploitations of a trackless field, a task long 
since and in various ways performed for those who confine 
their speculations to the beaten paths of history, a labor 
not always appreciated by those who derive the greatest 
benefit from it. 

Then as now I held the highest opinion in regard to 
the future of these shores of the Pacific, though I was 
scarcely prepared for the immediate expansion of the 
American people such as actually occurred after the Span- 



328 RETROSPECTION 

ish war. As to the relative importance of historical events } 
however, I have always felt that the presence of the Rus- 
sians at Fort Ross, or the Hudson Bay company's people 
at Yerba Buena were as important as the adventures of 
Romulus and Remus with their pet wolf. 

I had neither the time nor the inclination for much 
epeculation, my chief concern being to bring into perspec- 
tive from the mixed mass before me the pertinent truths 
of history ; and I never for a moment lost sight of the sub- 
lime significance of the unfoldings of a new civilization. 

As there was a work here to be done, a work which would 
have itself done, and as I knew nothing but business I must 
apply to it business methods or none, and I had not pro- 
ceeded far before I became satisfied that in no other way 
could any thing have been made out of the situation. 

But how to go about it was the question. I understood 
well enough the usual way of gathering facts, extracting 
material, and presenting in narrative form, well digested 
and organized, the completed work. 

The author does everything himself, investigates, 
searches out sources of information, reads, analyzes, ex- 
tracts, collates, and determines. 

"I never trust any one to do this for me," he would 
say. ' ' How should I otherwise know it to be correct ? And 
how could I assert it to be correct if I did not know it to 
be so?" 

So might the shipmaster say, "How shall I know this 
vessel to be safe unless I lay every plank?" Or the railroad 
builder, "Unless I drive every spike how shall I vouch for 
it?" True, but the world would not move forward very 
rapidly at that rate. I have had hundreds of men, and so 
has every other large employer of labor, whom I would 
trust in the most vital affairs as fully as I would trust 
myself. 

All the same a strong prejudice existed among the 
scholars and writers who had spent their lives in prepara- 
tion for work along the old lines against an innovation 



METHODS OF WRITING HISTORY 329 

which practically rendered their way obsolete; and every 
one knows that it is not easy, once having become accus- 
tomed to certain methods, whether in the way of law, 
medicine or theology, which by many for many years has 
been held to be the only right way, it is not so easy to dis- 
card it even though another way is proved to be better. 

On moving my collection from its original place at 
Montgomery and Merchant streets, I was able to give it 
spacious quarters upon the upper floor of the new Market 
street building, where were good light and air and all the 
adjuncts of a model literary work-shop. The library room 
was 170 feet long and forty feet wide, with my own private 
rooms adjoining. All the available wall space of the 
library room was covered with well filled shelves, a portion 
of the middle space being utilized later as the collection 
became enlarged. 

A plan finally took shape in my mind, after consider- 
ing and rejecting many others, which enabled me to begin. 
It was first to index the entire collection as one would index 
a single book. To this end five long tables were made and 
placed lengthwise in the middle of the library room. On 
either side of the tables were seated the indexers, the num- 
ber being usually kept at about thirty. At a volume a day 
each, twenty thousand of the more important books might 
be gone over in two years. But during the progress of my 
work the number of volumes increased threefold, which 
increase had to be met as best I was able. 

To prevent the index from scattering the extracted in- 
formation over too wide a range of subjects, forty themes 
were given out, under which all real knowledge might be 
classified, subordinate lines being added as occasion re- 
quired. Thus under mines would be brought together all 
the mines throughout the entire territory, the sub-titles, 
as Zacatecas 1681, Coloma 1848, bringing together all exist- 
ing local information, a thousand different mining districts 
being thus brought under one heading, yet each district 



330 RETROSPECTION 

complete in its arrangement, and all distinct one from 
another. So with regard to other subjects, as Agricul- 
ture, Botany, Manufactures, and so on. 

The indexers were selected from those applying as best 
I was able to distinguish in some measure which were the 
more promising. These were instructed by those I had 
drilled, their work proved and passed upon by the one in 
charge of the table, who also gave out the books and kept 
an account of what was done. 

My assistants, here as elsewhere, were educated men of 
all ages and degrees of competency and of all nationalities. 
The trial of an hour decided the fate of some, while others 
were promoted to more advanced positions, and retained 
their place some of them for ten or twenty years. 

Next came the extracting of all the information extant 
upon each of the several localities thus brought together 
and placed within reach by the index. Comparatively few 
were able to stand the test of competency in this work, as 
besides absolute accuracy certain literary ability was re- 
quired to write it out in proper form. Out of a thousand 
indexers perhaps a dozen might be found, and if in that 
dozen there should be one or two who could render me real 
assistance in arranging, revising, rewriting, condensing, 
adding, eliminating, or whatever else was essential to as- 
sure proper narration, I felt myself fortunate indeed. 

With my subject well in hand, the treatment mapped 
in my mind, conflicting statements reconciled and knotty 
questions settled, I composed rapidly, whether writing out 
my narrative or dictating to a stenographer. 

During the following six years of preparation, a gen- 
eral plan, covering my entire field of effort, developed in 
my mind, which I carried out successfully, though mod- 
ified as the work progressed to meet emergencies. 

Central America, being first of the continental discov- 
eries and occupation by Europeans, obviously should be 
the proper starting point. 



METHODS OF WRITING HISTORY 331 

So I began there with the coming of Columbus, and 
Rodrigo de Bastidas, and Vasco Nunez de Balboa to this 
weird land of strange adventure and romantic experiences. 

At every turn the natives interposed, forced upon the 
issues of the moment before all things else except gold. 
For a time I floundered about trying to overcome or evade 
them. If I passed them by too briefly their agency in con- 
quest and occupation would remain ill-understood; if I 
stopped to describe them properly, who and what they 
were, and why they so behaved, the continuity of my work 
would be affected, events become misplaced, and the thread 
of the narrative broken or lost. 

There was but one thing I could do ; to get rid of them 
I must write them up. 

Thus originated my first work, The Native Races of the 
Pacific States of North America, in five octavo volumes, 
with many maps and illustrations. 

My system worked admirably here. It focused to the 
paper beneath my pen every peculiarity, every phase of 
form and feeling of all the many several tribes and nations, 
of whatsoever degree of culture or of savagism, inhabiting 
the seaboard and interior all the way from Alaska to 
Panama. 

I first mapped out the country and then arranged the 
detail for the treatment of the subject, directing my as- 
sistants to lay out the material so arranged for my use. 
Beginning at the north I called the first division Hyper- 
boreans, the second Columbians, followed by the Cali- 
f ornians, and the wild tribes and civilized nations of Mexico 
and Central America, I gave separately and at length their 
respective manners and customs, their mythologies, lan- 
guages, and primitive history. 

It was fortunate in several respects that it so fell out 
that this should be the first of the series to be written and 
published, as for a new and untried author it was less diffi- 
cult of accomplishment than the subsequent volumes, less 
open to criticism, and more immediately useful to scholars. 



332 RETROSPECTION 

The volumes when published brought my undertaking 
at once into favor, and secured for me a high reputation 
for faithful and efficient effort. 

Soon after their publication I received letters from 
Doctor Draper, President Porter of Yale College with a 
complimentary degree, Mr. Lecky, Sir John Lubbock, and 
Herbert Spencer commending the book in the highest 
terms. Emerson, Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and 
others were also profuse in words of appreciation and 
praise. 

Then along similar lines I continued writing and pub- 
lishing my histories, issuing one volume at a time, the whole 
period of publication covering fifteen years. 

After Central America, in three volumes, came the 
History of Mexico in six volumes, covering a period of 
nearly four hundred years. I soon saw that the allotted 
space w r as too limited properly to include the exploitation 
of the northern states of the republic, and the secession of 
Texas ; I concluded therefore to embody this latter work in 
two volumes entitled History of the North Mexican States 
and Texas. 

Then followed the History of California, in seven vol- 
umes; Arizona and New Mexico, one volume; Northwest 
Coast, two volumes; Oregon, two volumes; Washington 
Idaho and Montana, one volume; British Columbia, one 
volume; Alaska, one volume; Utah, one volume; Nevada 
Wyoming and Colorado, one volume; Popular Tribunals, 
two volumes; California Inter Pocula, one volume; Cali- 
fornia Pastoral, one volume; Essays and Miscellany, one 
volume; and Literary Industries, one volume. 

All of these volumes contain numerous references to the 
sources of information whence it was derived. I desired 
above all accuracy in the statement of facts, and in their 
elucidation good judgment and fairness of decision in re- 
lation to men and things. 

I adopted a system of checks and counter checks which 
rendered it almost impossible for an error to pass the proof- 



METHODS OF WRITING HISTORY 333 

reading, no matter how many pages of references there 
might be in a chapter. In one instance, however, where 
there were two editions of the same book paged differently, 
one edition was given in the list of authorities while the 
references were made to the other edition. The error was 
not detected until half of the edition had been sent out. 
Every copy, however, was immediately called in and the 
proper corrections made, though involving no small labor 
and expense, as the books had been widely scattered in the 
delivery. No other instance of the kind ever happened 
with me, nor have I ever had pointed out to me an un- 
corrected error in the references, notes or text. 

My method evolved itself from the necessities of the 
case. I had no one to confer with. There was available 
no person of experience whom I might engage to assist me, 
and had there been such it would have made no difference, 
for never before had there been such an undertaking as the 
reduction to forms available of such a mass of raw material 
as that which was now before me. 

The cooperative method of history-writing, wherein 
some score of expert scholars or professors each contribute 
a monograph upon that part of the subject with which he 
is most familiar, the whole being planned and put together 
by an editor, had not yet come into vogue, nor did it until 
after my work was published and my method eyed askance 
by professionals. 

Still later appeared another form in which to present 
historical information, the encyclopedic, on which are en- 
gaged many writers, great and small, the names of none but 
the more prominent being mentioned. This differs from 
the cooperative method only in degree, the latter giving a 
volume to an epoch or an episode while the former is more 
topical, from a few lines to many pages being given to a 
single subject. 

The vastness of my plan made it appear chimerical in 
the eyes of some, yet it was clearly enough to be seen that 



334 RETROSPECTION 

the old system must pass away, that there was a limit to 
individual endeavor, and that henceforth no extensive his- 
torical investigation would be undertaken by one man alone. 

An elaborate publication was brought out by the li- 
brarian of Harvard university, consisting of monographs 
by different writers on historical subjects arranged chrono- 
logically by the editor and printed as history. The work 
is historical but it is not history in the ordinary sense, it is 
not a systematic record of past events. 

A few persons only ever understood the situation. I 
was far from understanding it myself at the start. I had 
nothing to go by. Never before had such work been un- 
dertaken or accomplished by any one. Lord Kingsborough 
essayed an impossible task, and his ninth folio volume found 
him bankrupt and insane, as we have seen. 

There are few similar instances on record, for there 
have been made by a single individual few attempts which 
were beyond the accomplishment of one man. Neither the 
individual, nor the cooperative, nor the encyclopedic, nor 
any other known method of writing history could have been 
successfully applied to my work, as no such conditions had 
ever before existed, and no such work had ever before been 
done. 

History on the cooperative plan is not history, but 
merely phases of history by writers of various ideas and 
individual trains of thought welded together by a nominal 
editor, whose work is ill-organized and ill-digested, unas- 
similated, lacking unity, lacking all adequate reflection, all 
the "deep human significance and scientific importance of 
the collective life it seeks to describe," and which no one 
but a trained professional with a mind narrowed by con- 
ventionalism would ever undertake. 

What would a so-called history of the American Revo- 
lution be, made up of disconnected papers by Patrick 
Henry, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Alexander 
Hamilton, and edited and promulgated by Aaron Burr? 
Notwithstanding the numberless historical monographs and 



METHODS OF WRITING HISTORY 335 

the writing at history in what may prove to be documentary 
material, epitomes, and episodes, there is but little writ- 
ing of history, of organized historical work, going on at 
the present time. 

The federal government and many of the several states 
are constantly grinding out historical volumes without 
purpose or plan and which are of little use to the general 
reader or to any one except the writer of history competent 
to put the information they contain into proper form and 
sequence. 

Obviously in all specialized work there must be a lack 
of uniformity which destroys continuity even where a care- 
ful plan has been formulated. Specialization is valuable 
in organized historical work only as prepared material to 
be brought into compact and consecutive form by a single 
mind. 

All subordinate literary work was at the time of my his- 
tory writing impersonal. The newspapers of that day were 
not loaded with the names and faces of sub-editors, re- 
porters, and special writers until the reader became 
nauseated from having the same portraits placed under his 
nose every day in the year. 

After my books appeared showing on their face research 
such as could not have been accomplished by one man or a 
dozen men, it became evident to copartnership writers that 
no great historical work in a new field could ever be carried 
out by a single person; and that even to work over old 
fields in the most effective way, specialists must be em- 
ployed, each expert in his own sphere. Some good work 
was accomplished in this way though it could scarcely be 
called history, as I have said. The person assuming the 
editorship was usually selected by the publisher having 
the project in hand for his popularity or prominence, and 
who had nothing to do with the enterprise except to lend 
it his name, and for which he received due compensation. 

In some instances he looks over the ground, makes out 
a list of subjects, and gives them out to the several writers 



336 RETROSPECTION 

whom he regards most competent for the purpose. There 
is no unity in the work, no consecutive narration, no ideas 
to be advanced and no deductions to be drawn. The 
novelty of it has passed away and the method is already 
obsolete, and such history as is the work of one person must 
hereafter be confined to a few volumes such as can be en- 
compassed by a single writer with perhaps half a dozen 
assistants. 

Cooperative history presupposes that the reader is fa- 
miliar not only with the facts of history but with the phil- 
osophy of history and needs no further enlightenment in 
these directions, so that the writer may give himself up to 
reflections on the several phases of history brought into 
somewhat undue prominence by special pleading. 

He who labors in fields already well worked may employ 
other words but finds few new facts, while for the ideas 
which he imagines his own he is indebted to some scores of 
others to whom he gives scant credit. 

To have turned loose into my raw material such a 
writer, or even to have given free rein to an able university 
professor, experienced in cooperative history work, yet 
with faculties contracted by running for a lifetime in a 
single rut, asking him for a proper consideration to present 
me over his signature a volume which should " reflect ad- 
equately the deep human significance and scientific impor- 
tance of the collective life" he might be able to find in 
the mixed mass before him, that I might place his volume 
beside a dozen other volumes, by a dozen other like pro- 
fessors, and call it all history, writing my name in a general 
title-page as editor, would have proved ludicrous in the 
extreme. 

But even had I so desired there was no such person pres- 
ent. I had only raw material to put at work on raw 
material. If ever I was to have assistants I must make 
them. If ever I was to reduce my material to forms 
available, lacking a method I must make one. I knew 



METHODS OF WMTINOx HISTORY 337 

what I wished to accomplish and I made no secret of it, 
or of the several means I employed in my efforts. 

Always the doors of my library were open to all the 
world. 

Theories and methods alike I regarded lightly so that 
the finished work met with the approval of the best judges, 
and that I fortunately had from first to last. 

People have said, and I for one know it to be true, that 
never before since the writing of history began has any 
such amount of steady persistent effort of honest, earnest, 
well-directed and intelligent labor been given to any his- 
torical work, nor yet the half of it, whether by a govern- 
ment, a society, or an individual. Nor is it likely ever to 
occur again, it being next to impossible that the several es- 
sential conditions should ever meet again. 

The merely mechanical writing was the smallest part 
of it. The most strenuous effort for me was in the long 
and arduous task of collecting, extracting, and classifying 
the material. 

My people used to expostulate with me for giving such 
free references to my sources of information. They said 
I was not doing myself justice, and that many writers who 
came after me would use my work without due credit; or 
worse, extract all their information from my work while 
pretending that they had before them the original au- 
thorities. 

For in all my writings, in the main, I used only the 
original authorities. 

That my work should be seized with avidity and appro- 
priated without credit, even by cooperative history writers 
and professors of high repute, to say nothing of the writers 
for newspapers and encyclopedias was to be expected, was 
in fact a gratification rather than otherwise, as showing the 
value of what I had done. So few of the histories made 
nowadays are worth stealing! The credit received from 
the best people amply repaid me for all my efforts. 



338 RETROSPECTION 

I well knew that this would be the case, and so was not 
disappointed as to the result. On the contrary I was glad 
to find my books of use to searchers after information, and 
to welcome every one to their use, whether they gave me 
credit for the same or not, that being a small matter, as I 
used to tell my friends. 

There w T ere two reasons which governed me in giving 
the references so fully for all that I wrote; one was that 
the authority was entitled to the credit, and the other that 
my books would be the better for it. 

My men used also to complain that I was not fair to 
myself in giving them credit for so much that they were 
not entitled to. I assured them that it gave me pleasure 
to make such acknowledgment both verbally and in my 
Literary Industries. 

And so with regard to my friends and the public; al- 
though mine was the first historical effort that had ever 
been undertaken by a single individual on an extensive 
scale, on every side I heard expressions only of confidence 
and good will. My concern was rather about the under- 
taking and how it could best be accomplished, more 
especially with regard to arrangement, accuracy, and com- 
pleteness. 

It was scarcely to be expected that such innovations as 
I had made throughout my entire work, in gathering ma- 
terial, in copying archives, making translations, taking 
dictations, filling gaps by writing down the acts and ex- 
periences of those first to appear and take part in establish- 
ing new communities, the reduction of the conglomerate 
mass to forms available with the assistance of inexperienced 
persons trained by the author to work all of them along the 
same lines, all to produce similar results, as if accomplished 
all by a single hand; then in like manner but with a still 
greater degree of uniformity the several parts to be brought 
together, compared, discrepancies reconciled, the truth of 
conflicting statements ascertained, and finally laid before 
the author for the accomplishment of the written work, it 



METHODS OF WRITING HISTORY 339 

was scarcely to be expected that such work should escape 
criticism from those who knew nothing about it, or were 
jealous of its accomplishment. 

Yet it never was severely criticized. Before proceed- 
ing far in my work, I took care not to place myself at the 
mercy of the local press, or of professional jealousy, but to 
accept judgment only from unprejudiced persons who knew 
nothing of me and cared nothing for my purpose. In my 
visits east I confined my intercourse to the best men, to 
literary men and scholars of highest repute, men like 
Charles Francis Adams, Edward Everett Hale, and Wen- 
dell Phillips, knowing that there I should meet the fairest 
treatment. 

From first to last, as I have said, the work held no 
secret. My greatest safeguard was publicity. The object 
and the plan were known to all; the experiment with its 
many tests was worked out under the eye of all; each 
worker's work was under the eyes of every other worker, 
and all open to strangers, visitors being little questioned 
as to who they were or what they wanted. 

I knew what I was trying to do, and before I had been 
long engaged in the effort I knew I should accomplish it. 
The doors of the library were never locked during work- 
ing hours. Visitors entered and departed without for- 
mality, an intelligent attache being always in attendance 
to show the rare and curious books and explain the nature 
of the work going forward. The severest drudgery I was 
called upon to undergo was in trying to utilize the labor of 
others ; my only pleasure was in my own work. 

It was not always easy to avoid treading on the toes of 
some among so many of divers prejudices. I was not only 
deeply interested in those whose stories I told, but I was in 
hearty sympathy with all who came early to this country, 
while the various religious beliefs, Catholic or Mormon, 
Jew or Gentile, were all one to me. Dear old Archbishop 
Alemany, one of the best and purest men that ever lived, 
kind hearted and tolerant withal, seeing where I had spoken 



340 RETROSPECTION 

rather carelessly of transubstantiation and the infallibility 
of the pope, said, ' ' They are doctrines very dear to us. ' ■ I 
was only too glad to modify my expressions. 

The Jewish rabbi took offense at a quotation I made 
from the Bible where I was describing how well the Jews 
were doing in California, and what a good country it was 
for them. "Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked," were the 
words, as harmless as they were expressive, it seemed to 
me, and taken from his own sacred book of Deuteronomy. 
He did not like it that they kicked. 

In order to ascertain what value they placed upon their 
brethren in Russia, I asked in case of a war on their account 
would the Jews join the army and go, or would they leave 
others to do the fighting for them. 

Noticing the interest another church dignitary took in 
Abraham Ruef, I wondered if his church and people would 
prefer to have him at liberty and among them, or that their 
society should be purged of his presence and he be held in 
prison. 

The logic of religion and the affections it is difficult 
sometimes to fathom. 

It was amusing to watch the antics of the California 
Pioneer society, whose members many of them were no less 
ignorant than childish, and who became greatly excited 
whenever the truth was too plainly spoken regarding any 
one of their pet heroes. 

It is the way we are made. Speak a work affecting our 
prejudices, and we are up in arms regardless of truth or 
reason. A word of censure offsets a page of praise. In 
my history of California I give biographical mention of 
some thousands of white men who came to the country 
prior to 1848. Praise predominates wherever possible; 
when not possible the truth is told, which brings a buzzing 
about the ears of the author from all the witless fossils of 
this San Francisco society of Incurables. The so-called 
conquest of California and the bear flag performance were 
fruitful topics for discordance. Tell them that the con- 



METHODS OF WRITING HISTORY 341 

quest of California was achieved at Chapultepec and rati- 
fied at Guadalupe Hidalgo, and they would not understand 
a word of it. 

Professor Royce, of Harvard, after carefully examining 
my authorities concerning many disputed points, reviewed 
my work in his History of California and pronounced my 
deductions fair and accurate in every respect, particularly 
those relating to the unsavory Fremont. 

Among the priests in charge of the California missions, 
as well as those high in ecclesiastical authority in Mexico, I 
found many charming men, all well educated, and most of 
them tolerant and affable. Whenever the cause of Christ 
demanded plain pugnacity, however, a champion was al- 
ways at hand, as when the author of a Catholic history 
of California lays low in the dust the author of a non- 
Catholic history while appropriating the work of the latter 
almost bodily. The author of the Catholic history must 
admit the value and accuracy of the non-Catholic work 
while denouncing the author for his ignorance and bigotry. 
Less honest writers simply purloin the facts and take the 
trouble neither to acknowledge nor denounce. 

There have been Mormon histories of Utah, and Catholic 
histories of Oregon, and Episcopal histories of British Col- 
umbia, but the historian who is none of these, and whose 
heart is in his work considers only the men and their 
achievements, religious beliefs having little significance ex- 
cept as affecting material development. Religious zeal built 
the missions of California, the nuclei of the coast towns 
from San Diego to San Francisco. Religion framed a 
state in the mountains of the desert, and religion overspread 
the valley of the Willamette with settlers, following the 
missionaries and measles, beneath which burdens the na- 
tives soon melted away. 

In carrying forward the narration of events I found 

frequently, as was to be expected, a hiatus in the material 

necessitating special investigation to fill the gaps, as I have 

heretofore explained. For example, lacking Russian ma- 

12 



342 RETROSPECTION 

terial for the history of Alaska, after obtaining from St. 
Petersburg everything printed on Russian America in the 
Russian language, and copies of the manuscripts relating 
to the subject in the St. Petersburg academy of science, I 
sent Ivan Petrof, first to Alaska, making two voyages 
thither, and then to Washington, to the office of the secretary 
of state, where were lodged all papers and documents which 
were in the hands of the Russian authorities in Alaska at 
the time of the transfer of that country to the United 
States. On the two expeditions of Mr. Petrof to Alaska 
he obtained much valuable material, and took important 
dictations from Russian and Hudson Bay company officials, 
while the greater part of the two years which were spent 
subsequently at Washington produced the most satisfactory 
results. 

In like manner while my men were engaged in the south, 
copying the papers of and taking dictations from the old 
Californian and Mexican families, Arguello, Coronel, Estu- 
dillo, Arnaz, and Ortega of San Jose, Santa Barbara, and 
San Buenaventura; and Bonilla, Altamirano, Corona, 
Barrios, and fifty others of Lower California, Mexico, Hon- 
duras, and Guatemala, they had instructions from time to 
time, as often as paucity of information was discovered, 
to make special effort to supply the deficiencies. 

Before and after my historical exploitations northward, 
I made frequent journeys to Mexico and elsewhere, pri- 
marily to fill breaks in the continuity of events, but having 
always in view the acquisition of fresh information. 

In one of my visits to Mexico, I took down, with the 
aid of native stenographers, a narrative of his life and 
career, from the lips of Porfirio Diaz, president of the re- 
public. The interview took place at the house of General 
Diaz, calle de San Augustin, and occupied a fortnight. 
This manuscript sheds new light on this most brilliant 
period of the nation's history, the events of which had never 
been published. 



METHODS OF WRITING HISTORY 343 

I was led to write the Resources and Development of 
Mexico in this way. The book was printed in English and 
Spanish, and published in 1893. Two years before this, 
while I was at his house one day, General Diaz was going 
over, with no small satisfaction, what had been accomplished 
in Mexico during his regime, showing the marked advance 
that had been made in agriculture, in the exploitation of 
mines, in railway building, in manufactures, in schools, 
colleges, and intellectual development, and in the growing 
efficiency of the army. "I take pride in my country's ad- 
vancement," he said. "I care for nothing else. I wish 
you would write a book telling what has been done, and 
what may be done, giving the condition and resources of 
the country." 

"To do that," I replied, "would require a thorough 
canvass through the states for the latest and fullest data." 

1 ' I will attend to that, ' ' he said. ' ' I will not only requisi- 
tion the governors, but send special agents to gather all the 
information you require." "Whereupon I undertook the 
work, he reading and passing upon it as it was going 
through the press. 

In the archiepiscopal archives at San Francisco, at the 
mission of Santa Barbara, at Santa Clara, and other centres 
of ecclesiastical lore, as well as in the county archives of Los 
Angeles and other pueblos, epitomes and abstracts were 
made at various times by my various secretaries, ex-gov- 
ernors judges and generals often serving in that capacity, 
thereby adding their own knowledge to that which they 
found written in the musty folios which they drew forth 
from their hidden recesses and gave to the light of day in 
the form of added manuscripts for the use of my historical 
work. 

While conducting the Evening Post in San Francisco 
Henry George brought me the manuscript of his Progress 
and Poverty and left it with me to look over. Few books 
of a serious character had as yet been written in California. 



344 RETROSPECTION 

There was a large volume on military law by H. W. Hal- 
leck, but as the author was neither military man nor lawyer 
out of the common, when he fell his book went with him. 

Upon examination of Progress and Poverty I became 
satisfied that if issued from so unimportant a literary 
centre as San Francisco it would not receive the attention 
it deserved at the east and in Europe. This I explained 
to Mr. George and advised him to take it to New York for 
publication, which he did. 

One day Dom Pedro II of Brazil came upon me un- 
ceremoniously and manifested a great interest in my work. 
He was on a tour of inspection throughout the United 
States, eager to adopt any new ideas beneficial to his 
country. 

He placed at my services whatever there might be of 
use to me in the archives at Rio de Janeiro, and also ob- 
tained for me all that I required from Portugal. 

I might go on reciting experiences like these to the end 
of the volume, so I may as well stop here. 

And while my copious notes and references threw open 
to all the world the sources of my information, and while 
many writers and compilers used my volumes without due 
credit, others of a different sort pursued a different course. 
Nevertheless I can truthfully say that from first to last I 
never felt any lack of appreciation of my work, and from 
the best men, from scholars of highest repute, I always 
felt I was receiving more praise than I deserved. 

This Retrospection I finish on this my eightieth birth- 
day. 

My work is done. 



CHAPTER XIX 

ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 

OF the several dark-skinned races that met western 
civilization in America the Japanese though latest to 
arrive were quickest to respond to its influence ; the African 
was the slowest; while the Chinaman, the most advanced 
of the three, and as an economic asset the best for low- 
grade labor in the world, was so sterilized by ages of inac- 
tion as to be impervious to the modifying influences of 
progress. 

In 1848 there were but three Chinese in California; 700 
came in 1849, 3000 in 1850, about the same number in 1851, 
and 10,000 in 1852. Then a sharp decline, the tide setting 
in the other way, and that without expulsion laws. More 
came later, and again the tide turned; whence it appears 
that California is not altogether and forever a paradise for 
the celestial. 

Nippon did not even awake at the call of gold, nor yet 
until Commodore Perry knocked so loudly at her portal, 
threatening if not opened to break it down. 

A true story of the Asiatics in America illustrates not 
only the elasticity of our old puritan principles, and certain 
glaring defects in our republican systems, but it brings 
home to us as well the amazing gullibility of the American 
people. "A century of dishonor " Helen Hunt calls our 
treatment of the Indians; she might add another century 
and include the Chinese. 

The first reception of these ancients of the Asiatics by 
the best men of San Francisco, — or should I say by the 
white devils of this weird environment as best befitting the 

345 



346 RETROSPECTION 

thoughts of the visitors, — may be better described in the 
words of an eye-witness than in a report at second hand. 

Albert Williams, the founder of the First Presbyterian 
church in San Francisco, in 1849, a good man of sound mind 
and practical ability, minister of Christ, friend of the sick 
and suffering, friend of the stranger, working for no earthly 
reward, working with other good men in this sometime hell- 
hole of gold and gambling, working with Frederick Bill- 
ings, with Governor Mason, with George W. P. Bissel and 
others of that stamp, thus writes: — 

"Very naturally the trade of California with the op- 
posite shore of the Pacific originated. Soon as the news of 
the discovery of gold reached its ports, ships lying in them 
were loaded and dispatched to the California market. Ar- 
riving at a time when goods of all kinds almost were in 
demand, cargoes were readily disposed of, and the vessels 
returned for second loadings. Here was demand, there 
was supply. An active though limited trade with China 
engaged leading mercantile houses in San Francisco. Fin- 
ley Johnson & Co., Osborn and Brannan, G. B. Post & Co. 
and others embarked in the trade. Articles of American 
and European growth and manufacture in the Chinese 
market found their opportunity to meet the new demand, 
products of China, tea, sugar, rice, and fruits were sent in 
quantities. This course of trade became settled, the im- 
portance of the business was felt and commented upon. 
At length communication with China by steamship was 
mooted. J. H. Osborn of San Francisco was foremost in 
urging upon the United States government the establish- 
ment of a mail steamship line between San Francisco and 
Hong-Kong. The end was accomplished. 

"Looking back to its commencement, it is seen that in 
the track of the newly opened trade the Chinese them- 
selves came to our shores. At first the number was few, 
so few as hardly to attract attention. Like other immi- 
grants they came as adventurers, they were importers and 



ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 347 

jobbers. Very few were in other employments. Nearly 
all were merchants. They were intelligent, and by their 
orderly demeanor they commended themselves to the public 
confidence and respect, their number steadily though 
slowly increased. In the summer of 1850 there were about 
one hundred Chinese in San Francisco. The first public 
recognition of their presence in our city was made an 
occasion of general interest. Consignments of Chinese 
books and tracts, secular and religious, having been sent 
to us, it was suggested by their consular agent, Frederick 
A. Woodworth, that a public distribution should be made 
of the publications among the resident Chinese. Arrange- 
ments were accordingly made by a committee consisting of 
Mr. Woodworth, Mayor Geary, and Mr. Williams. In the 
afternoon of the 28th of August, 1850, their entire number 
assembled and were conducted in procession, two by two, 
to a large platform on Portsmouth square. In their rich 
national costume, not omitting the costly fan to shelter 
them from the sun, they were objects of marked observa- 
tion. In turn they were addressed, through Ah Sing, the 
interpreter, by Mr. Woodworth, Mayor Geary, Mr. Hunt, 
and Mr. Williams, the several speakers united in express- 
ing the pleasure shared in common by the citizens of San 
Francisco in their presence, the encouraging omen of open- 
ing friendly intercourse with their country, the hope that 
more of their people would follow their example in crossing 
the ocean to our shore, and finally charging them with a 
message to their friends in China that in coming to this 
country they would find welcome and protection. The dig- 
nified manners and general attractive bearing of the China 
boys, as Mr. Woodworth familiarly styled them, — others 
said they bore the appearance of mandarins, — called forth 
universal commendation. The California Courier making 
note concerning them expressed the general sentiment. 
'We have never seen a finer-looking body of men collected 
together in San Francisco, ' it said ; ' in fact, this portion of 



348 RETROSPECTION 

our population is a pattern for sobriety, order, and 
obedience to laws, not only to other foreign residents but 
to Americans themselves.' " 

Such was the estimate of the situation placed by these 
representatives of the American people then in San Fran- 
cisco, a newly opened port of the advanced civilization, and 
nearest the celestial regions of the cultured heathen who 
now for the first time timidly approached our shores in re- 
sponse to pledges of good faith and courtesy. 

It was the voice not of aliens or demagogues but of true 
men not yet demoralized by prosperity, of true Americans, 
sons of those who had come for conscience sake, and had 
called from the wilds to all the world, "Come over to us 
and be free!" 

It was the voice of humanity, of fraternity, calling 
to the victims of the old world despotisms and superstitions. 
More to the point, perhaps, in the minds of these utilitarian 
occupants of the San Francisco dunes, it was the voice of 
good business. Here for the first time in history met upon 
the most friendly and favorable terms the latest civilization 
of the West and the remotest civilization of the East. 

It was an opportunity such as could come but once to 
any people, an opportunity such as the powers of Europe 
would have fought for if fighting could accomplish the 
purpose; an opportunity for the statesman, the merchant, 
the manufacturer, the philanthropist, the proselytist, an 
opportunity for us to make the whole of China our sphere 
of influence, and give us the beneficent guardianship of 
half a continent older than England and richer than India. 

And w T e threw the chance away. The insensate folly 
of it! Congress was occupied with that dismal curse of 
Africa, the enslaved black man and his master, and had no 
time to talk of continents ; besides, the celestial empire was 
far away. The politician was thinking of place, the jour- 
nalist of patronage, and the agitator of his dinner; these, 
the masters of the situation, united their strength for pelf. 
What cared they for principalities and powers, for the 



ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 349 

glory of Yankeedom, for the prosperity of the United 
States, or even for remote advantages to themselves! 

The friendly emissaries from far Cathay returned home 
and reported. They told their people, the mild-eyed 
dwellers upon the streams of paradise, and the sterner in- 
habitants of the celestial hills, that the foreign devils lately 
arrived upon the opposite shores though white and bearded 
were not evil-minded beings, but good devils, friendly and 
kind, ready to share with them their gold and give them 
their clothes to wash, their ditches to dig, and lordly aliens 
to wait upon. So with the rest of the world came the 
Chinese to California, specially invited thither, though 
spurned and scourged on their arrival, and for fifty years 
thereafter. 

The Japanese, their emergence from exclusiveness at 
the call of Commodore Perry, their marvelous develop- 
ment, their deeds at arms and their coming hither in un- 
welcomed numbers are incidents known to all, but the story 
of the Chinese in America has never been fully or fairly 
told. It is a tale not particularly pleasing, not specially 
creditable to a people professing broad benevolence, love 
of equity, and filled with a desire to benefit the world, to 
enlighten and civilize and Christianize every nation of 
whatsoever color or creed. 

It is a tale of patient endurance on the part of a people 
not altogether lovely, and by no means altogether vile; 
a people whose nation, buried under the accumulations of 
its own numbers, is still dreaming life away in its old half- 
civilization, and yet with vitality enough, with temerity 
hitherto unknown among its members, for some to pledge 
dearly loved wife and children for passage to the wilder- 
ness across the fearful waters, where they might gather a 
little gold with which to return and make them all happy 
forever after. 

The rude encounter they were called upon to undergo 
at the outset with a dominant race, which too often de- 



350 RETROSPECTION 

lights in its rudeness, was small as compared with their 
relentless persecution by demagogues and politicians high 
and low, by a servile press and a thoughtless people, all 
under protection of a great and good government that de- 
lights in dealing out fair justice to the white man and to 
the black man, but which balks when up against the yellow 
man. Color-blind, or color-wise, or color-crazed, which? 
The anarchistic Italian, called white; the cannibalistic 
African, known to be black, fine material for American 
citizenship even though fresh from his native jungle and 
of the proper shade, but pale yellow is an off color in fed- 
eral dispensations. So decreed the sapient law-makers at 
Washington, incited thereunto by alien agitators and a 
prostituted press. 

In the face of these influences what could they do, the 
merchant, the farmer, the manufacturer, the professor, the 
preacher. A true expression of opinion would bring upon 
them unpopularity and loss of patronage; it were easier 
to float with the tide. So the iniquity must be continued, 
not for ourselves or for the good of the country, but to 
please the fancy and gratify the passions of low-grade 
Europeans who had no more right to dictate terms than 
had those they would drive away. 

It was in the placer mines of California, in the early 
gold-gathering days, that Chinese working-men first made 
their appearance in any considerable numbers in America. 
To the somewhat unlearned and inexperienced mid-conti- 
nent Americans who came hither from the opposite direc- 
tion upon the same errand, they were a queer humanity. 
Eyes aslant and long tail of braided hair ; half -shaved scalp 
with black stubs standing in the scraped yellow skin ; fuzzy 
face with flat nose and wide-extended mouth; raiment 
brilliant and baggy; shuffling gait and clattering feet, 
high squeaking voice, — this for first glance and the outside ; 
later, after many deep soundings for fresh iniquities to be 
used in their undoing, they were found to be mild and un- 



ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 351 

offending; self-centred and retiring, yet, when cornered 
ready to fight with reckless indifference to danger; hard 
workers, economical and thrifty, — or as others would say 
low-wage grinders, parsimonious and niggardly. 

Temperate, preferring a little of the divine drug to 
great measures of brain-burning drink ; never seen stagger- 
ing on the street, or joining in noisy riot, or begging for 
bed-money, or lying dead drunk with upturned bloated 
face in the gutter as their vilifiers are sometimes found; 
pagan in mind and morals and yet more Christian than 
many Christians ; — or if one chooses, opium-smoking, devil- 
worshiping heathen, — yet void of small revenges, void of 
the many outrages that the white and black indulge in; 
declining to intermeddle in politics; declining citizenship, 
assimilation, or amalgamation; declining any new religion 
yet never attempting to enforce their own; declining boy- 
cotts, strikes, and dynamiting; declining theft of franchise, 
looting, and the usual official vileness; asking but little in 
the way of free education, free prisons, hospitals, or 
asylums. 

From an industrial point of view they are the best class 
for certain work that comes to this country, and if our 
morals and Americanism cannot survive their indifference, 
we had better reconstruct ourselves. Indeed that they do 
not desire close relationship, but are satisfied to do our 
drudgery, disturbing nothing, stealing nothing, and then 
retire, is one of the best features of the case. 

When the American miners saw these strange beings 
from the ancient east pecking at the placers, they cried 
"Scat!" as to ground-squirrels in a field of grain. For 
was not this their country, for which somebody sometime 
had bled and died; was not this the land looted from 
Mexico by Polk's politicians, and was not the gold thereof 
their very own ? True, there were present other foreigners, 
who were likewise interlopers, Mexicans, Kanakas, and 
tropical islanders, English, French, and Germans. 

The Europeans, however, did not fly away so readily at 



352 RETROSPECTION 

the shouting of "Scat!" but seemed able to take care of 
themselves; so the patriotism of the Americans might all 
be saved to discharge at those of dusky skin. 

While the yield was plentiful and the gold-picking 
easy it seemed scarcely worth while to quarrel over the rela- 
tive rights of American citizens and foreigners. A little 
way back in the Sierra there were probably many mother 
lodes, mountains of metal, perhaps, from which pieces and 
particles had been brought down to the foot-hills by the 
water and the ice, places where mule trains might be loaded 
with gold and ships bear away cargoes of it. But the gold 
mountains could not be found, and the weary prospectors 
came back from their wanderings, and the miners returned 
to their old claims, driving out those who had taken posses- 
sion during their absence. 

Other rumors of other great gold deposits were heard, 
and away rush the mercurial miners only again to return, 
which they must do or starve. At first a claim that did not 
pay an ounce a day to the man was not worth having, but 
when forced to it they were content with eight dollars, and 
then with four dollars a day, below which returns white 
men would not work, though the Chinamen held on, scratch- 
ing around abandoned claims and working over several 
times the old tailings, content to secure even a dollar a 
day. So the Chinese remained at their gold-gleanings long 
after the white men had given them up, and still the press 
and politicians baited them. 

Meanwhile among the miners whenever sport was afoot 
there were plenty of participants. And what could be 
better fun for a band of patriots in defense of their new 
gold-giving country, on a warm Sunday afternoon, filled 
with Sunday whiskey, than a raid on a Chinese camp to 
see the celestials fly? Mounted on mustangs with pistols 
popping, away they go, into the valley of death, the brave 
fellows; when shall their glory fade? "What in hell are 
these heathen doing here any way, carrying off our gold, 
and leaving only a hole in the ground ! ' ' 



ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 353 

But when it came to knife practice pure and simple, if 
peradventure some unlucky wight got his queue cut off too 
near the shoulders, the raiders were always ready to apolo- 
gize for the mistake like gentlemen. 

No one dare frown and say "infamous" on their re- 
turn, and get a pistol-ball in his hat for his pains. The 
rumseller would not say so, nor the store-keeper who sold 
them goods, nor the hotel man, nor the humble ones who 
found profit in minding their own business. 

The aspirant to legislative honors laughed loudly over 
these brave exploits, promising laws that should fix the 
foreigners, and so reaping a harvest of votes. 

After all it was only a freak of the miners which 
started it, and which led to such unhappy results both in 
the United States and in the British colonies, for had no 
steps been taken in the one case they would not have been 
taken in the other. The migratory gold-diggers really 
cared nothing for the little that could be gathered from 
their leavings; the farmers always wanted Chinese help, 
particularly in their households, and few factories could 
long continue without them. The press and politicians 
found profit and patronage in keeping up the agitation; 
nothing was to be gained by taking up the other side ; there 
were few to speak a good word for the Chinamen, so that 
it was thought that more were against them than was 
really the case. 

In the city streets likewise, Johns and demijons appeared 
as funny fellows as they with their almond-eyes and pig- 
tails, their wooden shoes and shiny dress, a candle-snuffer 
on the head and a balancing-pole with baskets over the 
shoulder. It made them laugh and play, the nice little boys 
on their way home from Sunday-school, who would throw 
stones at them and pull their pigtails, while the big boys 
to show their bravery would give them a kick or throw 
dirt in their eyes, the tormented strangers making no re- 
sistance. 



354 RETROSPECTION 

Then up sprang Dennis Kearney, out of the bogs came 
he, and his one cry from first to last was, "The Chinese 
must go ! " 

Why must the Chinese go, Mr. Kearney; and by what 
authority do you come hither all the way from Kilkenny to 
order any one out of America ? 

"Bedad they take the work from our wives, and the 
bread from our childer, and lave us no cesspools to clane, 
and we wouldn't clane 'em if they did." 

And if they do thus and so have they not as much right 
here as you? Is it the mission of the American people to 
find work for the Irish? Are we commissioned by the 
Almighty to provide for the European and drive out the 
Asiatic ? 

Suppose you talk less, Mr. Kearney, and go to work. 
Regard the Chinese with an unprejudiced eye; there is 
much you may learn from them to your advantage if you 
will profit by their example. There is room here for both 
of you if you will step back a little way and not place 
yourself quite so much in evidence. 

Yet ever and forever, on this Market street sand-lot in 
San Francisco at the triangular Yerba Buena cemetery, in 
front of where the city hall was later placed, mounted on 
a drygoods box the cry goes forth from this blatant Irish- 
man, "The Chinese must go!" 

Standing by listening to the chaste eloquence of Dennis, 
and meditating thereon were the impecunious politician, the 
demagogue, and the embryo walking delegate, for here 
sprang up in a night these several champions of labor, each 
to depend forever after on the labor of others for his food 
and clothes. 

Then the white working-man, who had votes and spent 
money, fancying himself ill-used as he was constantly kept 
informed, took up the cry, and soon there was not a news- 
paper or politician in the country that dared speak a favor- 
able word for the Chinese. 

It was the irony of impudence the appearance upon the 



ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 355 

sand-lots of the city hall of the scum of Europe crying out 
orders to the American people, and stranger still that the 
American people should hear and obey. 

The charges formulated against the Chinese were false 
in every particular, or if true were not serious. Far worse 
might be said of their accusers. All were predicated upon 
the hypothesis that Europe and Africa have rights in the 
United States which Asia has not, and that it is our duty 
as between the Irish and the Chinese to consider the wel- 
fare of the former alone. The same line of argument, if 
arguments such assertions can be called, was followed by 
all, sand-lotter, demagogues, statesmen, and editors; yet 
the only true reason why the presence of the Asiatic among 
us was undesirable was because he did not vote, although 
none of them took the trouble so to state it. 

If all these fatuous charges failed to convince, the 
demagogues would sometimes fall back upon the truth, and 
give the real reasons why they opposed the coming of the 
Asiatics, which were solely individual and selfish — it would 
not pay them to do otherwise. 

Even the white working-man did not care how many of 
these little yellow things came to America, well knowing 
they were no match for him, until he was persuaded by his 
masters, the politicians and labor leaders, that some sort 
of wrong was being perpetrated against him. Then on 
the sand-lots, the intelligence thence radiating throughout 
the state, throughout the world, the Chinese were every- 
thing that was wicked and undesirable, while their virtues 
were turned into grossest vice. "The Chinese must go!" 
cried Dennis, demagogues repeating, "The Chinese must 
go!" a subservient press echoing "must go" and from dis- 
tant Washington the wail of elusive votes "must go!" 

Ah, men of sense, is this your boasted republicanism, a 
government by the people for the people? Rather a gov- 
ernment by wild Irishmen, for wild Irishmen and self- 
serving labor leaders ! 



356 EETROSPECTION 

Wherefore it appears that some of us do not want the 
Asiatic in America. We will take his tea, his silks, and 
his works of art but we do not want him. The nations of 
Christendom are willing to exploit his country and parcel 
out his lands among them, retaining the inhabitants to 
work them, though they abhor slavery, unless it be such 
slavery as India enjoys. 

Should admittance to the celestial lands on these or 
other satisfactory terms be denied them, they could bat- 
ter down the doors with their guns as did England when 
out with a chip on her shoulder peddling her India opium, 
or as gallant Commodore Perry threatened to do if the little 
apes delayed him too long while standing on their holy 
dignity. True, we deny them admittance to our shores; 
but that is different. 

What is the matter with the Chinese working-man? Is 
he lazy and ultra-amorous like the negro, anarchistic dirty 
and revengeful like the Italian, thieving and vermiparous 
like the Slav, or impudent and intermeddling like the Celt 
and Teuton? 

Are not their merchants as honorable as our high-crime 
bankers and corporate capitalists, and are their dens of vice 
more repulsive than our Barbary coast and classic Tender- 
loin? Is it because they are not quarrelsome, do not in- 
dulge in street brawls, or stagger about drunk in public 
places, or fill our hospitals and penitentiaries that we so 
dislike them? 

The Chinese will not amalgamate we are told. They 
care nothing for our doctrine of race suicide ; they will not 
make love to our matrons nor marry our maids, nor breed 
a few millions of yellow piccaninnies for American citizen- 
ship. 

They will not assimilate politically ; they do not care to 
become voters, play policeman, or lean upon a shovel-handle 
over public works at three dollars a day. They do not care 
to control whiskey-shops, guard gambling dens, or protect 
restaurant palaces of ill-fame; they do not care to steal a 



ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 357 

franchise, or loot the public treasury, or buy a seat in the 
United States senate. They do not care for our cathedrals, 
but prefer their Josh house with its thirty thousand devils. 
They love their own country better than ours; being out- 
siders and un-American, they only wish to return to their 
own country at the proper time, failing in which their 
bones must be made into a fragrant little package and sent 
there. 

Lacking these accomplishments, lacking the essentials 
of American citizenship, the lords high demagogue of the 
nation adopt the proper means to efface them, and with 
their effacement to efface the most promising industries of 
western America, delaying economic development for half 
a century if not for all time. 

The truth is that for common labor, factory work, and 
fruit farming, industries necessary to our civilization but 
which cannot pay a high wage and live, and which first- 
class American artisans and mechanics will not touch at any 
price, the Chinaman has no equal. He is faithful, efficient, 
and honest; he is cleanly, thrifty, and decent. 

His alleged faults are among his most valued qualities. 
The fact that he does more work for less pay, that he saves 
his earnings and in sickness becomes a charge to no one, 
and that he has no desire to mix in society or intermeddle 
in politics are all points in his favor. For surely we should 
be satisfied with the dregs of humanity we have already 
absorbed into our body politic without desiring more. We 
want the Asiatic for our low-grade work, and when it is 
finished we want him to go home and stay there until we 
want him again. 

This is exactly what the Chinaman himself wishes; the 
Japanese, on the contrary, has more subtle pretensions. He 
is captious, clamorous of his rights, and would like to be- 
come the equal or superior of the white race. He anticipates 
war, and is prying into hidden things and on the alert to 
learn. He is more frivolous and unreliable than the 
Chinese, and is not so good as a working-man, but to the 



358 RETROSPECTION 

half-stranded farmer or manufacturer he is better than 
none. 

The white race proposes to control the earth. When 
that time comes the working-man of to-day will want men 
to work for him ; will he employ all white labor or use the 
Asiatics for some things? And will his children work or 
remain idle? He will control the tropics but he cannot 
work there. Neither will the African work tropical lands 
unless driven to it. If the white man would possess the 
tropics he must employ Asiatic labor. 

We want some men in the United States for work alone. 
We do not need them all for governing or for breeding 
purposes, least of all low grade foreigners, Asiatic or Euro- 
pean. We want some who are not for ornament, and whose 
aspirations are to do something for their employer, and 
not to overturn or supersede him. 

The Chinese are the best material obtainable for domes- 
tic service. They are the solution of the domestic problem. 
The daughters of working-men prefer factory or other work 
at a less wage but with more leisure and independence, 
while the present class of immigrants are not good for 
much at anything. More than 100,000 Chinese are needed 
throughout the United States for household service alone, 
to say nothing of such occupations as hop-picking, fruit- 
gathering and scores of menial and mechanical industries 
in town and country essential to the comfort and prosperity 
of the people, and without the slightest injury, but rather 
a benefit to the American working-man. 

And to this labor the farmer, the householder, the 
manufacturer have a right, as much right as has the south- 
ern cotton planter to employ the African, without whom, 
or his equivalent, which it would be difficult to find for 
that place, his plantation would be valueless and the nation 
be deprived of one of its great industries. 

The American and European are best for high grade 
work; the Chinaman is best for low grade labor. In agri- 
culture and horticulture the lines are distinctly drawn; 



ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 359 

the Asiatic is good for fruit-growing but is worth nothing 
in grain-growing or stockraising. 

The value of an alien element to a new country depends 
upon its adaptability to unite with the best and not with 
the worst classes in the community. The low European 
gravitates toward the lowest ; the Asiatic does not ; he does 
not gravitate at all, but remains here as at home, stationary. 
There are two kinds of assimilation, assimilation upward 
and assimilation downward. The Asiatic will not assim- 
ilate downward. 

If the interests of the nation are considered, if the 
rights of the farmer and manufacturer as opposed to the 
hollow and frenzied demonstrations of press and politicians 
are considered, and especially if the economic development 
of the Pacific is worthy of attention, then steps should be 
taken for the protection of industries vital to the progress 
of this section of the commonwealth. A system of pass- 
ports, or other device, might easily be arranged so that 
the needed Asiatic laborers could be admitted as required, 
and sent away when no longer needed. 

The origin of the infamy, as we have seen, was in the 
overweening conceit of unfledged Americans turned loose 
in the California mines, and in the aggressive unrest of the 
Irish transplantation. 

Passing the question of the tacit consent of the United 
States to the unassessed presence of foreigners working in 
the mines the American miner chose to feel aggrieved, or 
to make a pretense of suffering at the presence of inter- 
lopers, especially of timid and unoffending strangers. 

In the cities the crusade was continued with greater 
virulence and with more disastrous effect. 

Impecunious politicians standing by and hearing Dennis 
talk saw the opportunity for gathering for themselves a 
little cheap fame. They could extol the Irish and denounce 
the Chinese as well as any one. Some of them could even 
shout louder than Dennis. It was but the bray of asses, 



360 RETROSPECTION 

yet men listened to the bray, shutting their ears to the 
words of wisdom and their hearts to every generous im- 
pulse. 

During inflammatory times it is easier to incite a 
riot than to institute a reform. Both may be at times im- 
portant agencies and Kearney adopted both. Was it a 
stroke of genius or simply Irish blundering that with the 
principle laid down of ''America for Americans" — an 
Irishism truly — the cry was raised "The Chinese must 
go." 

So it was not in the mines but in legislative circles 
on the sand-lots before the city hall and in the sanctum of 
editors that the real baiting of the Chinese in America was 
carried on. 

It was in the towns and cities of the United States that 
the idea originated of a crusade upon a people whose bar- 
riers of exclusiveness were but a short time before broken 
down by Christian cannon mainly at the moment for the 
enforced introduction of Christian opium. 

An illegal foreign miners ' license law, instigated by the 
press and politicians and directed solely at the Chinese, 
was passed by the legislature. It began at sixteen dollars 
a month and afterward was reduced to eight dollars, and 
then four dollars, but even the last amount could be col- 
lected only with difficulty, and likewise being a fraud on 
the part of the state from the first, as it was a federal and 
not a state affair, the matter was dropped. 

Nothing was said about refunding the money of which 
the Chinese miners in America was thus robbed. 

Setting aside the cant of politicians and the clap-trap 
of newspapers, let us look fairly at this matter of Chinese 
exclusion as it was and is. The charges brought against 
the Asiatics, the reasons why they should not be admitted 
as laborers in the United States have been and are from first 
to last utterly fatuous and fallacious. 

First, it was declared that if they were admitted with- 



ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 361 

out restriction they would flood the country and extinguish 
us and our civilization. 

Secondly, they demoralized American labor, worked for 
too little, spending nothing, and living upon too low a 
plane for decency; they were parsimonious and filthy. 

Thirdly, they were conscienceless heathen, with no con- 
ception of liberal institutions, who cared nothing for citizen- 
ship and would not assimilate, socially or politically. 

I believe that covers it all; and the answer is this. 

First, they need not be admitted without restriction; 
such a course was never contemplated. Such a course 
should never have been allowed with regard to any people, 
least of all with regard to the lower class of Europeans. 
The Chinese have never shown any disposition to flood our 
shores with their people; they do not want the United 
States, preferring their own country. It cost them money 
and sacrifice to come so far and receive such ill treatment, 
and they could not afford to work for too little. It is a 
matter of record that when wages fell below a certain point 
the tide set in the other way, more returning home than 
coming here. 

Secondly, they do not demoralize American labor; free 
American labor is a thing which cannot be demoralized. 
Manipulators of unionism are doing their best to demoral- 
ize, to enslave it, but they will not succeed. We want the 
Asiatics to perform certain labor which the better class of 
white men decline to do, such as acting as operatives in 
factories and performing all kinds of farm, fruit, and vine- 
yard work, except teaming. The white population gravi- 
tates toward the cities, which are growing faster than the 
country. Immigrants from Europe prefer the city to the 
country. White farm hands of the rural districts as a 
rule are shiftless and unreliable, given to drunkenness and 
idling, ready to stop work at any moment and spend what 
they have earned. Even if they could be obtained, they 
are far less desirable than Asiatics, who as a rule are hon- 
est, sober and industrious, yet who require watching in 



362 RETROSPECTION 

common with the rest of mankind. Until European and 
American labor changes its mind and attitude California 
must have Asiatic labor or give up fruit-farming, wine- 
making, the hop, the sugar-beet, and like rural industries, 
as well as any hope or expectation of extensive manufac- 
turing, such as will enable us successfully to compete with 
the rest of the world. 

Nor is American labor obliged to cheapen itself and 
live poorly like the Asiatics whose inferior work commands 
a less wage. We have already an aristocracy of labor 
whether we recognize it or not. Further, what we choose 
to call parsimony is really thrift, a quality some other work- 
ing men would do well to imitate, and as for filthiness those 
who know the people would never make the charge. 

The sink-holes of corruption in the cities, whether 
heathen or Christian, are about on a level as regards filth 
and immorality, while in respectable city households, as 
well as in the country, those who are forced to endure the 
slovenliness of many of the white servants, Teuton or Celt, 
would never complain of Asiatic filthiness, whether of per- 
son or surroundings. 

Thirdly : And here we come to the crux of the case, the 
most serious of all considerations, and the only one affect- 
ing the entire Republic. And singular as it may appear, 
the charges here brought forward as defects, as heretofore 
intimated, are in reality the highest possible recommenda- 
tion for the admission of Asiatics. They are utterly alien 
in body and soul ; they are un-American and will not amal- 
gamate. So we might say of any of our good, kind domestic 
animals. And shall I be forbidden the use of mules on my 
farm because their bray is not the bray of Dennis Kearney ? 

They decline American citizenship. And who shall blame 
them, looking upon the low alien of other climes who loafs 
about the street and sells his vote for half a dollar? That 
they decline this honor, that they do not immediately on 
arrival begin to study politics, should be and is the highest 
recommendation for their admission. 



ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 363 

So as we see all along the line, the very charges their 
enemies bring against them are but a recital of their vir- 
tues — peaceable, laborious, economical, honest, sober, what 
more should one expect even of celestial scavengers ? That 
they decline the use of dynamite to enforce their opinions; 
that they do not at once intrigue to overturn the existing 
order of things, whatever they may be, to swear themselves 
into position with good intentions — the intentions hell is 
paved with ; that they do not at once seek to become police- 
men, or congressmen, to corrupt our sons, to proselyte our 
wives, to marry our daughters — grievous faults, and griev- 
ously have they suffered for them. 

They decline American citizenship — the harpers still 
harping; and little wonder, we say again, when we look 
upon its latter-day deterioration — once superior to any 
Roman, now, largely galvanized refuse from foreign parts. 
If they would curry favor with the new regime they should 
discard their virtues and adopt the current vices, cease 
being peaceable, laborious, economical, honest, and sober, 
and straightway intrigue for power and place. 

Nor is it a very noble figure American artisans and 
mechanics present grudging these little pigtails their mite 
from work they themselves will not touch, growling like 
dogs in a manger at those who make their clothes and grow 
their food, neither themselves helping nor permitting others 
to help in this most necessary of all work. 

Let the builders of the Republic alone; let them alone, 
the farmer who provides the food, the manufacturer who 
weaves the raw material into articles of use and comfort, 
the irrigator and reclaimer of waste lands, the railroad 
makers, and the rest; let them have the men and beasts 
and implements they require in their work, and let them 
not be hampered by American demagogues or Irish agita- 
tors. And most senseless of all, while driving away these 
food-producers and raising the labor wage to the highest 
possible rate, to complain of the increased cost of living! 

The city wage-earner is neither fit for farm labor nor 



364 RETROSPECTION 

will lie engage in it. Then say the Kearneyite economists, 
"If we cannot have fruit, and wine, and olives, without 
Asiatic labor we will go without. ' ' Very kind and unselfish 
and truly Christian and American spirit. We might 
answer, "If we cannot have Irishmen who will be quiet 
and behave themselves properly we will do without them." 
Have our citizens from Kilkenny any objections to the em- 
ployment of Chinese in powder-mills, where they are sure 
to be blown up sooner or later"? Mills and manufactories 
require thousands of operatives. It is not a suitable place 
for boys and girls, for men and women of European blood 
if we wish to elevate and improve the race. The world of 
humanity must be clothed and fed, and there must be 
workers in cotton and wool and food-stuffs. Factory work 
consists largely in tending noisy machines in a foul atmos- 
phere, and continued from youth to age it is neither im- 
proving nor ennobling. The monotonous working of the 
machine of which the operative is but a part, the endless 
repetition of the same motions, the constant alertness re- 
quired to avoid catastrophe, the strain upon the nerves 
and the rattling upon the brain all tend to deaden the 
mind and deform the body. 

The average American wage-earner will not place his 
boy or girl at factory work, and yet the average American 
workman must have overalls. In Asia are many millions 
who were born a machine and will never become any thing 
else, who are little accustomed to clothing and who never 
once in their lives have known what it is to have enough 
to eat. To these factory work in a Christian land with a 
little meat and Sunday-school would be a great up-lift, a 
blessing and a charity to them, a benefit to a civilization 
requiring clothes, and a means of boundless prosperity to 
an imperial city. 

All of which is respectfully submitted, with the permis- 
sion of the gentlemen voters from Kilkenny and their satel- 
lites, senators, demagogues, and newspapers. Either this, 
or let our abundance of raw material go past us to Asia, 



ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 365 

there to be worked up by these same poor heathen for the 
benefit of the world. 

No one advocates opening the floodgates to let all Asia 
in, nor yet all Europe. But of the latter it is too late to 
speak. The damage is done, we have denationalized our- 
selves. The United States as an Anglo-Saxon republic is 
a thing of the past ; the typical American is no longer Uncle 
Sam in evening dress, but a stocky cross between Teuton 
and Latin, a little taller with features less coarse. I do 
not say he is better or worse than the Yankee. 

Though we spurn the Asiatics we send missionaries over 
the water to convert them to our religion ; though we drive 
them from our shore we receive them in our free schools 
and universities; though we prepare ourselves to fight 
them we show them our arsenals and tell them all our 
secrets for attack and defense. 

Many good men were led astray under misapprehension 
as to popular sentiment even as to what their own opinion 
might be upon intelligent consideration of the subject. 
Yet it is easily enough explained, the great mass of the 
people were not specially interested. But one side of the 
question was ever presented, for after the crusade had 
been fairly set running no newspaper or aspirant for office 
dare say a word in favor of the Chinese. And so the 
myth has been kept alive for half a century. 

Business men in California from the east saw at once 
the importance of cultivating friendly relations with all 
the nations bordering on the Pacific, particularly with the 
four hundred millions of Chinese who needed everything 
appertaining to the higher civilization which Europe and 
America could supply — which Europe would be glad to 
supply if America would not. What stupendous folly to 
throw away all of our superb advantages at the instigation 
of European interlopers! 

Some, perhaps, may find comfort in the reflection that 
but for Irish agitators and labor leaders, and the indiffer- 



366 RETROSPECTION 

ence of so-called Americans to the interests of America, 
the United States could now be in the industrial possession 
of China, a thing of more stupendous value even than 
India has been to England. 

Yet even now good Americans say, as said good Amer- 
icans sixty-three years ago, "Be the first to recognize 
China, her independence and her grand destiny. Let us 
open our doors to her, and cease the insensate folly of 
allowing blatant aliens to regulate our international 
affairs. ' ' 

If China continues her progression she will in due time 
be in a position to dictate terms as hitherto others have 
dictated to her. Five thousand air ships sailing over 
America and Europe, dropping bombs into the large cities, 
would cause quite a commotion. 

The Japanese working-man in our midst is less objec- 
tionable than the Japanese gentleman, who delights in stir- 
ring up strife and making trouble. If any Japanese are 
excluded it should be the educated and ambitious class 
and not the working men. If all Asiatic labor is excluded 
the result will be an industrial paralysis such as has never 
been seriously considered. 

Japanese labor, however, as I have said, is better than 
none, any thing is better than the continuation of this dog 
in the manger policy of union labor, which will neither do 
the necessary work of the nation and of its people, nor per- 
mit others to do it. 

At the beginning of the century nearly all the Asiatic 
ports were closed to American commerce. It seems scarcely 
possible that it was only seventy years ago that Commodore 
Perry was knocking at the doors of Japan threatening to 
break them down if not admitted. Australia, with its mil- 
lions of square miles of uncleared brush, taking alarm from 
the attitude of California, trembling with passion as be- 
fore some invisible horror, for safety shut her doors against 
she knew not what and for reasons she knew not why. 

We are becoming exceedingly polite to China just now, 



ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 367 

in the hope of inducing her to spend on world's fair ex- 
hibits the amount of Boxer indemnity returned by the 
United States, and thus bring the Orient to America on 
such a scale of magnificence as has never been dreamed of. 
At the same time, singular as it may appear, our treatment 
of the Chinese landing at our ports is more barbarous than 
that of the most barbarous nations, men and women are 
regarded with suspicion and examined with rudeness and 
insults, like criminal suspects instead of respectable citizens 
of the world. 

The remedy as regards Asiatic labor in America is 
simple enough; if we wish to restrict this sort of immigra- 
tion — which we certainly do wish to restrict, and European 
and African as well — appoint a commission to whom farm- 
ers and manufacturers requiring workmen may apply for 
the needed operatives and farm hands, to be sent home 
when no longer required. 

Japan awoke at the touch to modern civilization. China, 
farther advanced was slower to respond, yet now bids fair 
to surpass all others of dusky skin in adopting liberal gov- 
ernment with a progressive policy. Africa, like aboriginal 
America, will never awake. 

Turning to the African in our midst we find conditions 
never elsewhere existing in the history of humanity. 

The Anglo-African presents a pathetic picture, a pic- 
ture more touching than that of Russian Jew or Armenian 
Christian. However white within he must forever appear 
in black without. However learned he may become, how- 
ever lofty his ideals or high his aspirations he must wear 
the badge of ignorance and servitude, he and his children 
forever. God hath made him so ; man has re-stamped him ; 
time brings no relief. It was a cruel kindness to enslave 
him ; it was cruelty pure and simple to enfranchise him. 

Sentimentalists say that our forefathers did the Afri- 
can a wrong when they enslaved him, and that we owe him 
reparation. It does not so appear to me. Slaves were ob- 



368 RETROSPECTION 

tained from different tribes constantly at war with each 
other, as Mandinga, Congo, Senegal, and Nard, each speak- 
ing a language which the other did not understand. 

The slaver found the object of his pursuit, as a rule, 
an enslaved cannibal in the hands of cannibals, to be sold 
or else to be killed and eaten. On the horrible slave-ships 
his condition was but little improved. It was from such 
atrocities as these that the southern planter rescued him, 
gave him work and made him happy. True, he did not 
buy him from benevolence but for profit. It was not the 
purpose of the slave-trade, the most infamous of human 
deeds since the coming of Christ, to make the negro happy. 
Further, only a few thousand were rescued from cannibal- 
ism, whereas millions became slaves. 

It is right and proper that we should do what we can 
for the amelioration of the condition of that unfortunate 
people, but not on the ground of the cruelties or injustice 
practised by others. 

For if ever we owed the negro aught we paid the debt 
many times in the war which though not for him was be- 
cause of him. 

When all is said, the fact remains that had the early 
slave-traders read and followed the American declaration 
of human rights, so emphasized by human wrongs, the pro- 
genitors of our Africans would have been killed and eaten, 
and these United States thereby have been saved much 
trouble, past and future. But fate willed it otherwise, and 
the end is not yet. 

Race friction will increase; there is nothing to soothe 
but everything to aggravate. And so race troubles will 
continue to grow with the growth of antagonistic popula- 
tions ; serious uprisings will come and continue until either 
the black or the white will have to efface himself. 

Between the poor white trash of the south and the 
idle rich of the north there are certain analogies as well as 
comparisons to be drawn. The one has passed the other 



ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 369 

is passing. Or shall we say that the entire south at present 
is poor white trash, that is if work or doing something use- 
ful makes them so. Privilege to-day is ruining the north 
as slavery ruined the south. The idle rich are the poor 
white trash and slaves combined, though they do not know 
it. From the poor white trash have emanated able and use- 
ful men ; I know of none who have come from the idle rich. 

It was right for us to set the negro free. It was pur 
necessity, not his. We have passed the period when we can 
hold our fellow-man in slavery and live. But we bungled 
more in liberating than in enslaving him. Brazil had only 
to declare that henceforth all children born of slave parents 
were born free, the parents still remaining slaves, and the 
thing was done. 

The tragedy of enfranchisement stares the republican 
party in the face like the ghost of Hamlet's father. 

Were it not better frankly to admit that the freed 
African in America is a failure, and that when made free 
he should have been sent away ? 

He is a failure here, for effective work is not to be ob- 
tained from him except under compulsion. As an Amer- 
ican citizen he is a monstrosity. 

If we could utilize our African citizens in factories 
and on farms it would be an advantage to all concerned, 
but the negro is good for nothing as a working-man, or 
for anything else, except on the southern plantations, and 
he is not all that he might be there. 

The African is lazy and licentious. It is not altogether 
the fault of the white man that he is so, nor yet altogether 
his own fault. It is kismet. The animal in him over- 
balances the mental. He will work only as necessity re- 
quires. At least three millions out of the ever-increasing 
ten millions encamped upon us live without work. The 
black man is trifling ; he lacks application ; he has neither 
continuous purpose nor continuous effort; he is satisfied 



370 KETROSPECTION 

simply to live and enjoy. And why not? Wall street 
might profit by his philosophy. 

We are told by good people of the sentimental school, 
as before remarked, that we have wronged the African, that 
notwithstanding the clothes and colored schools we have 
given him, the lessons in grace and refinement, and the sev- 
eral other gifts of the intellectual life, to say nothing of 
the bestowal of equal rights and American citizenship, that 
we are still in his debt. 

This is discouraging. 

To our fair land of America he was brought a captive — 
a happy captive one would think — and in a genial clime 
was given work, not too severe, as the change from meat 
diet to corn must be considered, and though for wholesome 
discipline cut with the whip a little sometimes when he 
moved too slowly. 

And on his part, did he pine away and grow pale under 
his inhuman wrongs ? Ah, no ! He laughed and grew fat, 
threw care to the winds, and slept undisturbed by thoughts 
of having to go into the boiling pot for somebody's break- 
fast in the morning. Thus on these southern plantations 
for a century or more he was made the happiest of mor- 
tals, as indeed from first to last he was the most for- 
tunate. His troubles came with emancipation; more came 
with enfranchisement; but he had to be emancipated; it, 
was necessity; civilization must be allowed to move on un- 
obstructed. 

We did more than that. We gave him religion, which 
he took to greedily. We gave him his freedom, but he did 
not know what to with it, and he gained from it no new 
happiness. We gave him American citizenship, the cheap- 
est thing we had — what was left over after supplying the 
Europeans, and which the Chinese would not take. And 
with the franchise in his pocket, price of votes from fifty 
cents to two dollars, he was left to propagate piccaninnies 
and idle life away in peace and happiness. 

However horrid the crime of human slavery, however 



ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 371 

repulsive in all its forms and unprofitable in its operations, 
the fact remains that the negro was never so well off, so 
happy and contented as when he was the chattel of the 
chivalrous south. It was as if God's curse of Canaan was 
but a covert benediction, for until he found the blessings 
of bondage in North America his lot was truly a piteous 
one, a savage, and the master or the slave of savages. 

A million of the finest young men the sun ever shone 
upon, slaughtered because of these Africans, and some bil- 
lions of money and property sacrificed — all together more 
than the whole continent of Africa and all its people are 
worth. I should call the debt paid, if indeed it ever existed. 

We are a queer lot, we Yankees, in common with the 
rest of the world ; even the best of us, the Boston sort, are 
sometimes a little queer, as when we mob William Lloyd 
Garrison and Wendell Phillips for speaking abolitionism 
that hurts our trade in the south, whilom taking the black 
man in our arms when that helps trade in the north or 
soothes our conscience in the sanctuary. 

In all this I mean no unkindness to the negro, and offer 
no excuse for his enslavement. I have never forgotten his 
wrongs as they were told to me at my mother's knee. I 
have never wavered in my loyalty to him since as a small 
boy I used to drive wagon loads of him on his way to free- 
dom hidden under the straw, but I cannot change from hot 
to cold and back again so often or so quickly as some of my 
super-sensitive friends. 

The boy, becoming man, though always anti-slavery, 
was never so rabid an abolitionist as were his parents and 
others of his native town. He could no more join the mob 
in pelting anti-slavery speakers with stones or rotten eggs 
than he could later, dissolved in a spasm of repentant senti- 
mentalism, clasp to his bosom the bad-smelling black man, 
or set him up as a ruler over his former masters. 

One of the most intricate problems of population before 
the American people, and one likely to be with us, is that 



372 RETROSPECTION 

of the African. The subject varies with the varying mood 
of the American mind, sentimentalism having entered into 
it largely of late. Every one knows that as an economic 
asset the freed slave diminished in value, while in the end 
the employer gained, as free labor is cheaper than slave 
labor. 

The relative influence for good or evil of the African, 
the Asiatic, and the European in our midst lies chiefly in 
the difference between adoption and absorption. If we 
could disabuse our minds of the sentiment that it is neces- 
sary forever to debase American blood and institutions by 
the infusion of low alien elements, whether in colors black, 
white, or yellow, receive and hold foreigners as foreigners 
for whatsoever they prove themselves to be worth, not 
necessarily to be admitted into our political household as 
members with all rights and privileges; assigning them 
their proper place, treating them fairly, without being 
forced to divide and re-divide with them our patrimony, 
we mig'ht better be able to preserve our own integrity while 
giving higher service to them. 

The great mistake has been in religiously or sentiment- 
ally regarding this Republic, its lands and institutions, as 
the world's common property. So long as the land was 
limitless, and better inhabited than lying waste, and our 
liberal principles and free institutions preserved in their 
integrity by the inherent force that originated them, the 
constant dilution has been endurable. But it cannot always 
last. How fast and how far in one brief century have we 
drifted from the plans and purposes of the founders of 
this Republic! We have made ten millions of negroes, of 
a servile race and antecedents, whose fathers were slaves 
and themselves in intellect, in natural proclivities, not too 
far removed from the jungles of Africa, our equals, politi- 
cally and some would have it so socially were it possible — a 
blot upon our name and nation, and now we know not what 
to do with them. We cannot kill them, or lose them, and 



ASIA AND AFRICA IN AMERICA 373 

they will not be driven by any force at our present com- 
mand to herd themselves on some distant island or con- 
tinent. 

Further, we do not need the negro for any purpose, 
and never shall. We did not need the Indian and so elim- 
inated him. We cannot so dispose of the negro. He is 
too incompetent and unreliable for any use; as a citizen 
of the commonwealth he is an unmitigated nuisance, and 
judging from the past he will so remain. The ultra sus- 
ceptible, who alternately scourge and weep will say other- 
wise, but the facts stand plainly out that he who runs may 
read if he chooses. Neither do w r e need any more of the 
scum of Europe. But we do need the Asiatic, not for his 
society or citizenship, not to marry our daughters or 
manage our government, but for work, work which our 
citizens, whether African or Anglo-Saxon, will not do. 
Agriculture and manufactures both languish for lack of 
laborers, and illogical as it may be and strangely absurd, 
the government selects its foreign population not by merit 
or capability, but by color; the white and black may come 
but not the yellow. The only class the labor leaders fear, 
because of its competency, because they think it is the only 
labor that can compete with or break up their labor 
monopoly. Docile statesmen, demagogues, and unprin- 
cipled agitators acquiesce and aid for patronage or some 
other selfish motives. Meanwhile the whole country, labor- 
ers and high livers alike, cries out against the high prices 
of food. Labor, ever insistent in its demands for more, is 
cutting its own thro?.t by killing the industries by which 
it lives, and sending up prices of commodities upon which 
depend the welfare of wives and children as well as of the 
workmen themselves. 

African economics are regulated by geographic influ- 
ence. Slavery never could have flourished in the northern 
states, even if the people had been in favor of it. Neither 
is the free negro of much use anywhere except on the plan- 
tations of the south. 

13 



374 RETROSPECTION 

As a laborer, bond or free, the negro is of economic 
value only in certain localities and under certain condi- 
tions. The labor must be agricultural and upon a large 
scale, so that he can be worked in gangs under the eye of 
an overseer. Then he needs to live in a warm climate. 
The cotton and tobacco fields of the south alone meet his 
requirements. In plantation life alone he finds happiness. 
To live together under compulsion on some allotted terri- 
tory would not suit the Americanized negro. He depends 
upon the white man to do his mental work, his thinking and 
managing for him, preferring himself only to serve. He 
is by nature and habit a servant, not alone because of his 
long period of enslavement, but because of his mental in- 
feriority. 

There are those who claim for the African race an in- 
tellectual equality with Europeans, but they make out a 
poor case of it. Even to Asiatics the Africans are inferior 
in every respect, else why when every opportunity and en- 
couragement was given them did they remain stationary, 
when Japan surged forward to the front the moment her 
reluctant doors were forced open by western civilization? 

Finally, as a last word to the fathers of our future, if 
you wish to keep your Republic sweet and clean you will 
not be forever emptying into it the cesspools of Europe, 
forbidding even celestials to come in and scrub. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE THROES OF LABOR 

OUT of great tribulation come the issues of life. And 
when we look back and see how unnecessary was all 
the sore travail which we had brought upon ourselves, how 
the results would have been quite the same, or better, had 
we possessed our souls in patience, waiting on time, the 
great deliverer, we are ready to agree with the preacher, 
to take our portion and rejoice in our labor. 

This was the conclusion arrived at by supreme wisdom 
several thousand years ago and it stands good to-day. Is 
religion, for example, any better, or purer, or clearer for 
all the fantastic and insane capers it has cut, for all the 
foolery it still indulges in, for all the bloody battles and 
merciless persecutions it has given and received, and for 
all the horrible atrocities committed in its name? 

Labor has always been under a cloud, placed there by 
wicked and cruel men, who seized the power and placed it 
in circumscription. Emerging now for the first time in 
history from its low estate, and taking its rightful place 
among the honorable things of earth, a proper acknowledg- 
ment is due to those who first entered the arena and fought 
its battles, even to the unsavory walking delegate. Him 
and all those of single heart and faithful purpose who 
came after him, assisting in the emancipation, we hold in 
grateful esteem. 

Presently there crept into the ranks men of evil mind 
who saw and seized the opportunity of self-advancement 
by making themselves masters of the situation. By con- 
trolling labor they could control capital, and thence pro- 
ceed to dominate government and society. 

375 



376 RETROSPECTION 

The militant attitude of labor toward all other economic 
forces with which it should be in harmony is but another 
illustration of the universality of oppugnant powers in the 
progress of mankind. Capital, equally militant as cour- 
age comes to it, prefers peace, though as it gathers strength 
it becomes subtly aggressive. 

In medieval times the overlord held the laborer in a 
state of serfdom, but as the centuries passed by an ever- 
changing environment wore upon the old heredity and de- 
veloped a new individualism, only in its turn to disappear 
before the superior powers of combination, destined hence- 
forth to dominate all economic enterprise. 

Meanwhile labor comes to the front and asserts itself, 
and men see and acknowledge that in labor alone is the re- 
demption of the race, that labor not luxury is civilization. 
All nature works, and when work ceases it is death. The 
idle rich and the idle poor alike stagnate. 

Capital, the product of labor, growing stronger with ac- 
cumulations and combinations, becomes arrogant and dom- 
inates all industries ; but as capital can do nothing without 
labor, it becomes timid before the leaders of labor, who 
make it their business to influence labor, not for its own 
good but for the benefit of the leaders. 

Thus labor in its turn becomes arrogant in forcing 
humiliating restrictions upon capital, and transforming 
the employers of labor into a condition of subserviency as 
humiliating as it is unprofitable. It rises at first in self- 
defense to an aggressive self-consciousness, increasing its 
demands until it becomes a tyrannizing force with result- 
ant evils greater than any threatened by capital. 

Capital is coercive as conditions give it courage ; it pre- 
sents a hostile front only when it has the advantage; at 
heart capital is cowardly, and waits in secret to increase its 
store in safety. 

Labor is likewise timid when standing alone, and thus 
designing men have found it, and now manipulate it to 
suit their purposes. Two-thirds of the wealth produced 



THE THROES OF LABOR 377 

by labor in the United States goes to men who combine 
capital and exploit labor. 

It is idle appealing to either side on any other ground 
than that of expediency. There is no room here for altru- 
istic ideals, no community ground for capital and labor 
where humanity may sit awhile and dream. 

Human intercourse is conducted largely upon trust. 
Every man is obliged to some extent to confide certain of 
his interests to every other man, whether he wills it so or 
not. Therefore fair dealing is the best business policy. By 
dealing fairly with others we place them under obligations 
to deal fairly with us. If we cheat we must expect to be 
cheated; if we overreach we must expect to be beaten in 
time. 

It is poor policy for the wage-earner or any one to shirk. 
You do not say to the young man for whom you wish suc- 
cess, "Now, my boy, look out that your employer doesn't 
get the better of you. Do for him as little as possible, and 
get out of him all you can." For you know that such a 
policy is neither economy, nor thrift, nor good business. 

The fair-minded citizen of sound judgment has no more 
respect for capital than for labor. He sees in the well- 
directed efforts of industry the noblest occupation of man. 
He feels that in the abasement of labor is placed under a 
ban and bars the most favored gift of the Almighty, the 
right of imitation in creative effort, the right of the crea- 
ture to struggle upward and touch the hand of the creator. 

The fair-minded citizen of sound judgment exalts rather 
than abases labor; he does not advocate a low wage, a low 
scale of living, or low ideals and aspirations for the people 
of applied industry. He has no respect for idleness or 
inefficiency, even when buried in riches; he sees in intel- 
ligent effort alone the salvation of the people. 

The fair-minded citizen of sound judgment, on the 
other hand, does not like to see the working-man display 
an undue degree of arrogance and egotism, of cupidity and 



378 RETROSPECTION 

selfishness, of disregard of the rights of others and the wel- 
fare of the community in which he lives and derives his 
many blessings. He would not see him wreck his life by 
a grasping policy tending to wrong and injustice. 

The rapid changes in the economic world necessitate 
new methods to meet new conditions. Just now these con- 
ditions are abnormal. They imply labor against labor, 
and labor against capital, capital remaining quiescent 
through fear, fear of labor and of the power which labor 
supports and increases. 

The economic life of the people groans under the ty- 
ranny of the two great forces, capital and labor, each ever 
seeking the mastery, each ever ready to crush the other as 
opportunity offers, regardless of the interests of those by 
whom both factions live. Out of this competitive struggle 
come life and death, success with plethoric wealth, failure 
with poverty if not with crime. Thus through the ages the 
eternal conflict continues, and will continue until some 
power stronger than either labor or capital intervenes. 

Power breeds arrogance and persecution, and left to 
itself destroys itself. Hence, as rightfully we should ex- 
pect, the leaders of labor fall on evil days, and unionism 
suffers in their disgrace. Meanwhile the working-man plods 
along in his new enslavement, and in the benefits he fancies 
he enjoys from it, happy in the hallucination of increased 
strength and manliness, and in the buffetings he is now 
able to inflict on his old enemy capital. 

Apparently labor is testing the efficacy of liberty, but 
it is the efficacy only of a change of masters. 

When first the walking delegate, in homely garb and 
humble mien, made his appearance among the down- 
trodden toilers of the race, he was hailed as an apostle of 
righteousness, sent to deliver the poor man from the 
clutches of the rich, to deliver labor from its long age of 
enslavement to capital. 

It was the incipient stage of a great reform, of a great 
deliverance, the emancipation of the noblest of human oc- 



THE THROES OF LABOR 379 

cupations. And to the nations came the message, Labor is 
our Lord, at once the curse of Cain and the benediction of 
the Almighty, the sustenance and salvation of the race. 
And no longer were mere poetic idealism the sublime words, 

"Get leave to work 
In this world, 'tis the best you get at all. 
For God, in cursing, gives us better gifts 

Than men in benediction. God says "Sweat 
For foreheads" ; men say "crowns" ; and so we are crowned, 
Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel 
Which snaps with a secret spring. 
Get work ; get work ; 
Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get. " 

As a reformation it could scarcely have been begun in 
a better way, or inaugurated under more favorable au- 
spices. It was now some time since labor had arisen from 
its original state of serfdom, but even yet was far from its 
rightful place as the peer of capital and the equal of the 
noblest of industries. It was regarded with contempt by 
an idle and profligate aristocracy, who while accepting 
without due compensation the fruits of labor, regarded 
labor for themselves as degrading. 

I say that in the earlier stages of the emancipation of 
labor the directors and organizers did some good work. 
Among the self-seeking and designing ones were some good 
men who really had the interests of the working-man at 
heart, who witnessed with true sympathy the wrongs and 
impositions practised upon him by merciless capitalists and 
employers of labor. They saw his helpless condition and 
used the only means within their power for his deliverance. 
They matched craft with craft, until they were led on to 
illegal means and brute force, which never permanently 
can accomplish any good. Capitalists would as quickly 
resort to law-breaking but for the fact that in capital the 
law has something tangible to light upon by way of pun- 
ishment. 

Times have changed, the labor leader is no longer the 



380 RETROSPECTION 

humble delegate; he has become the arrogant master, en- 
slaving his victim body and mind, ordering his incoming 
and outgoing, dominating his citizenship, commanding his 
vote, stealing his inheritance to sell to those who would 
forge yet stronger his fetters. 

Behold your masters, oh men of work ! Sit down and 
write out their names. Con them over. Whom of those 
among them all can you trust ? Who of them will not lie, 
or accept a bribe, or assist a dynamiter? Who of them 
when once in office does not disappoint the men who placed 
him there, does not fill with disgust the entire community ? 

The tendency of capital in the hands of shrewd 
financiers is toward combinations which give control to 
yet other capital resulting in monopolies which destroy 
the smaller industries and bring ruin upon thousands who 
live by honest effort. The centralization of power in the 
hands of a few unscrupulous men, whether of labor or cap- 
ital, is one of the most threatening evils of the day. 

Capital with its aggressive cupidity does not hesitate 
to degrade labor, even to the foul air, the long days, and 
the low wages of the sweating system, while labor retaliates 
on capital as it may, lessening its usefulness by suicidal 
imposts and restrictions. 

All laws tending to obstruct or abolish individualism 
are bad as tending to make more mechanical human life 
and society. We do not want to see labor cheap. We want 
,the working-man to get all he can legitimately; we want 
him to have out of it all the traffic will stand, but we do 
not like to see him commit industrial suicide, to the ruin 
of himself, of his employer, and of the city or country in 
which he lives. 

Labor needs protection from capital as capital needs 
protection from labor; either will tyrannize as opportunity 
offers, for so men are made. 

To secure protection, association is necessary; to secure 
independence, labor must organize. But organized labor 



THE THROES OF LABOR 381 

is apt to become despotic. Labor leaders are not always 
wisely chosen; they are not usually brought forward from 
the higher ranges of mind or morals. They are apt to be 
blatant in speech and brutal in methods, arrogant in assert- 
ing their own rights and indifferent as to the rights of 
others; too blind often to see their own suicidal policy, or 
too selfish to care whether it is suicidal or not so long as 
it meets their more immediate purpose. 

As the first step toward the amelioration of the social 
condition of the working-men the unionizing of labor was 
a necessity. And unionism has done well for labor in rais- 
ing wages and the standard of living, which benefits accrue 
not alone to the laborer but to all. And in the unionizing 
of labor there have been engaged some few honest and con- 
scientious persons, but as a rule the leaders of labor have 
been and are bad men. The same evils, only in greater 
degree, have crept in and now attend the unionizing of 
labor that appear in the combination of corporate wealth. 

Labor should unionize in a way that will benefit not 
itself alone but the entire community. To aid and not to 
hamper progress should be the first consideration of 
unionism. 

The labor wage should be one that is fair to all, high 
enough to give the working-man a good living besides his 
proper share in the product of his labor, but not so high 
as to kill industry or retard development. 

If the laborer wishes to become a capitalist he can do so 
in greater or less degree by saving his earnings. 

Would it not be better, fairer for both sides, to reckon 
the workmen 's wage by the hour, instead of by the day, and 
then let him work as many or as few hours as he pleases? 
Is it not something of an imposition on the employer, after 
fixing a nine-hour wage to demand the same pay for eight 
hours, and a half -day Saturday 1 And is it not an imposi- 
tion upon the laborer to restrict him as to the number of 
his working hours? Some men can work ten hours easier 
than others can work eight hours; is it right to limit a 



382 RETROSPECTION 

workman to short hours when he wants to work longer and 
earn more? 

Two great mistakes the labor unions are making which 
they will have to modify before achieving that peaceable 
success which all desire, one the adoption of a policy op- 
posed to public interest, and the other the employment of 
force. Nothing but evil and discomfiture can come to the 
working-man by persistence in either one of these courses. 

From equal rights, which was the primary principle of 
unionism, labor now demands not only special privileges 
but the absolute control of the rights and privileges of 
others. As with the domination of labor capital has long 
dominated the laborer ; so now with the domination of cap- 
ital labor would dominate the capitalist. 

It is needless to say that in the United States of Amer- 
ica the days of coercion of one class of society by another 
class is past. Moreover, whatever is to the interest of the 
public is to the interest of the working-man, for more than 
any other person the laborer prospers with the prosperity 
of the commonwealth. 

Whether or not the labor leaders actually incite their 
subordinates to crime, they use every means in their power 
to save them from punishment when crime is committed. 
Instead of purging their associations from evil, and so serve 
their best interests, they condone the offenses of their 
people and with lies and perjuries throw the blame of 
wrong doing upon innocent persons. This is human nature, 
it is true, but it is very bad human nature, and wholly un- 
profitable. 

The government should recognize the conflict between 
labor and capital and take means to control the situation 
and so avert bloodshed and civil war. 

It should be made unlawful and punishable for capital 
to impose unfair rules and wages on labor, and for labor 
to engage in strikes or interference in traffic or industries 
to the damage or inconvenience of the public. 



THE THROES OF LABOR 383 

Strikes are criminal, and should be made so by law, 
their evil effects being visited upon the people. The gov- 
ernment protects its injured citizens abroad, can it not 
protect those at home ? 

Until labor unions are taken from the hands of irre- 
sponsible and evil-minded persons and given legal recog- 
nition and government control, business men still standing 
palsied with timidity, any thought of progress or prosperity 
may as well be abandoned. Meanwhile, so long as there 
remains left any individual freedom, the non-union laborer 
must be left free. 

I am treating only of the relation between capital and 
labor, not the relation between labor and the luxuries of 
life. It is nonsense to talk as some do about labor, about 
being for or against the working-man. As well talk about 
being for or against the bread we eat or the air we breathe. 
Labor came as the primal curse, later to become the primal 
blessing. It is idle also to expect or desire working-men 
to live poorly and in ignorance, the result of his toil going to 
the idle rich. The working-man and the labor leaders are 
two different quantities. Let this be properly understood. 

We all recognize the necessity of avoiding conditions 
which would place the standard of wages and living below 
the demands of our civilization. 

Labor claims that it is not receiving its proper share 
of the returns from its work. Capital declares that for 
the product labor is properly paid; with what is further 
done to make it more valuable, labor has nothing to do. 
Labor says, you can talk, but that does not make it right 
for one per cent, of the population to hold sixty per cent, 
of the national wealth. 

Honest labor is compelled to support not only the idle 
rich, but the idle poor. Of tramps and loafers, men able to 
work but of besotted laziness, there are more at large than 
there are good and efficient laborers at work. Unfit for 
unionism, unable to pay the agents of unionism their fee, 
as a rule they are held off and not allowed to work on any 



384 RETROSPECTION 

terms as long as union labor can be had. But as election 
time approaches — for even of such as these are American 
citizens made — they are allowed to rest their weary limbs 
upon a shovel-handle over public works at not less than 
three dollars a day. 

Skilled labor should always command a good price. It 
is sure to do so where conditions are fit. Food and capital 
compel labor. The price of food, the interest on money, 
and the labor wage are reciprocal in their relation to each 
other; the price of labor determines the price of food and 
the rate of interest on money, while food values and in- 
terest regulate to no small extent the labor wage. 

As never before wealth is rolled up in England as well 
as in the United States, and the laboring man feeling that 
he is not getting his fair share of it demands more pay. 
Particularly is this the case when the increased cost of liv- 
ing is taken into account. 

But the remedy does not appear even with increased 
wages, for as the price of labor advances the cost of all 
commodities advances still more rapidly. 

We all appreciate fully the benefit to society and the 
welfare of the laboring man that he should have to the 
fullest extent comforts for his family and leisure in which 
to enjoy life. He who does the work has as much right to 
champagne with his dinner, automobiles for his wife, and 
sealskin for his daughter, as has the man who shares the 
profits in idleness. 

Good wages are significant of good times, and in good 
times capital easily increases. Likewise it is to the interest 
of labor that capital should be prosperous, for without 
the employment given by capital labor suffers. Capital 
and labor interests being thus so closely interwoven in their 
action and reaction, one cannot suffer without causing the 
other to suffer. The relations being reciprocal the inter- 
ests are reciprocal. If labor demands too large a wage, 
capital is palsied ; if the labor wage is too low it means dull 
times for capital and degradation for labor. 



THE THROES OF LABOR 385 

With a high wage constant and regular work cannot be 
expected, and regularity of work at a moderate wage is 
better than irregularity with a high wage. Where the wage 
is too high there will always be irregularity because indus- 
trial development cannot be conducted at high pressure 
permanently. 

From the viewpoint either of labor or capital it is 
a suicidal policy then of the labor leaders who by the 
high rates to which they force labor bring to a place two 
or four times as many artisans as there is work for them 
to do. 

One of the greatest evils attending the working-man is 
to be without work, whether from illness or lack of employ- 
ment. And it makes little difference whether unemploy- 
ment arises from stress of weather or from an over supply 
of laborers. He is at his best when he is both for himself 
and his employer, when he has the work for which he is 
best fitted at a moderate wage every day in the year. With 
high wages and an over supply of workmen, employment 
is intermittent and hence unremunerative. It is better to 
work for four dollars a day every day than to work for 
six dollars a day every other day. 

Wages in England were advanced until 1901, when suc- 
cessful competition was no longer possible. Then they 
declined, and at a time when the cost of food was advanc- 
ing, which rendered the hardship greater than if they had 
been continuously maintained at a competitive rate from 
the first. 

Elsewhere in the United States, away from the influ- 
ence of the Southern Pacific railway, or other like octopi, 
the four decades of graft were the opportunity of the idle 
rich, the nation's resources were seized and appropriated, 
and the output from manufacturing plants was largely in- 
creased. Combined capital introduced new machinery and 
secured the increased profits, while labor continued along 
in the old way with occasional spasms of revolt ending in 
successful or disastrous strikes. Capital secured the profits, 



386 RETROSPECTION 

and many men became rich ; labor meanwhile made no pro- 
portionate gain. The rich retired on their laurels, and 
now live idle lives, lapped in luxury and supported by 
labor. 

Prosperity comes from the economic development of 
resources. Our resources cannot be developed without 
labor. If the labor best adapted for the development of the 
country's resources is debarred, and there is nothing pres- 
ent to take its place, the work is left undone and the coun- 
try turned over to dry-rot. Which means that enough 
Asiatics should be admitted to perform such drudgery and 
factory work as white Americans will not do. 

The solution of the labor problem, as in all else relat- 
ing to humanity, lies in the happy mean; too high a wage 
defeats its purpose and becomes prohibitory; too low a 
wage breeds poverty and discontent, and is debasing to the 
human race. "Work is honorable; it is the only ennobling 
use of time, and to degrade it is to degrade humanity. 

As for the unemployed, if the labor wage is what it 
should be and conditions normal there would be no unem- 
ployed. Of course, there are times when sickness, misfor- 
tune, or calamity overtake and overrule, yet there are few 
days in the year when in a well regulated American com- 
munity a good man wanting work cannot get it. 

Thus the conflict between capital and labor continues 
on through the ages, as senseless as the competitive building 
of war-ships among the nations. The more the laborer 
demands the more it costs him to live, until his demand be- 
comes so large that the industry is killed, and then he can- 
not live at all. So long as high wages and high living con- 
tinue, if he is thrifty he can save something out of even 
this artificial state of things; but the common laborer is 
not thrifty. 

To enforce his doctrines Cain, the first of labor regu- 
lators, employed a club ; dynamite is now the favorite argu- 
ment, though in so serious a matter the overlords allow 
their serfs to handle the explosive. 



THE THROES OF LABOR 387 

"I will dynamite the whole damned United States, or 
I will have my rights,'' one was heard to say. And the 
whole United States sits and smiles, while those who try 
to catch and bring to justice the dynamiters are vilified by 
the predatory press. 

Whatever may be the interests of one or the opinions of 
another, whatever may be the effect of any system or the 
result of any remedy, the fact remains that the leaders of 
labor throughout the United States, as to-day existing, are 
a curse to the working-man and a curse to the community. 

And for the following reasons : 

They set up a vicious system, feudalistic in spirit and 
debasing in practise, in which the rights and liberties of 
the people are usurped by designing men, who rule arbi- 
trarily the affairs alike of employers and employed, and 
at their own pleasure, through strikes or other impositions 
bring distress upon the entire community, thus becoming 
bandits of industry, of whom both politics and ' ' good busi- 
ness" stand in surreptitious fear. 

They profess principles founded on a conspiracy of 
violence, resulting in widespread assassination. 

They keep continuously the most vital interests of so- 
ciety in a state of feverish unrest. 

They are a standing reproach to our government, mak- 
ing it appear necessary to allow a large class of citizens 
special guidance and police protection. 

They are a standing reproach to our government in that 
they are allowed while accessories to crime to subvert the 
law and defeat the ends of justice. 

They dominate all industry and place development un- 
der a ban. 

They dictate terms to merchants, builders, and manu- 
facturers as to their business methods and the management 
of their affairs. 

They are the enemy and not the friend of labor, in that 
they, first, enslave the working-man, making of him a tool 
blindly to do their bidding; secondly, tax labor at their 



388 RETROSPECTION 

pleasure and for their own benefit; thirdly, foster enmity 
between classes; fourthly, encourage resistance to law; 
fifthly, stir up brutal passions; sixthly, employ politics to 
defeat the ends of justice. 

They stir up strife among men of kindred aims and in- 
terests. 

They foment antagonisms tending to civil war. 

They force manufacturers out of their own city to other 
places where conditions are free. 

They build up rival places, while in humiliation and 
despair good citizens see their own city outstripped in 
population, wealth, and refinement. 

They join hands with depravity and high crime to 
place their tools in office. 

They maintain in the very teeth of the government a 
wide-spread association of assassins to destroy with dyna- 
mite those who employ free labor. 

They put in office bad men, who are a disgrace to any 
civilized society, who promote civic immorality, increase 
taxes, subvert the resources of the community, and drive 
away capital. 

They give the city in which they operate a bad name 
and shake the confidence of investors in the honesty and 
integrity of her citizens. 

They arrogate to themselves the rights of the Almighty 
to determine who may work and live, and who shall not 
work but may die, forbidding the young men to learn a 
trade except as they shall permit. 

They drive off thousands of honest and industrious 
American working-men w T ho seek employment at a fair 
wage but refuse paying tribute to the labor monopolists. 

They are incendiary in speech and behavior. 

They are hated alike by employer and employed. 

They incite their tools to insurrection and then with- 
draw themselves from the consequences. 

They know not the meaning of patriotism ; they have no 
interest in the country, care nothing for the welfare of the 



THE THROES OF LABOR 389 

people, care nothing for the working-man, but grovel for- 
ever in their own selfishness. 

They force ships to other ports for repairs, by reason of 
their excessive charges. 

They have ruined the shipping industry of San Fran- 
cisco, which formerly employed thousands of men, and by 
their extortionate demands closed the works where, among 
other vessels, were built the finest battleships in the world. 

They claim that class loyalty is superior to the law of 
God, and that to kill in defense of unionism and the closed 
shop is right ; that the striker may shoot, mangle, and dyna- 
mite, killing men, women, and children indiscriminately, as 
in a holy crusade ; but the strike-breaker is the most abom- 
inable of wretches, worthy only of assassination. 

They aspire to absolute control of the working-man, 
dictatorship over his employer, and object to any interfer- 
ence on the part of the government or the people. They 
object to free labor or a free laborer, to Asiatic labor, to 
any but union labor, and such labor as a union man does 
not choose to do must go undone. 

With the usual cant and hypocrisy of demagogues they 
pretend to demand only what is right and fair, while re- 
sorting to the vilest means to secure the supremacy. 

While the victim of the strike, with his wife and chil- 
dren, is starving, the authors of the strike are living in 
luxury at the working-man's expense. 

What is the remedy? The government has felt the 
necessity of controlling combinations of corporate wealth, 
should it not also recognize the necessity of controlling 
combinations of labor? 

The steel trust, the sugar trust, the meat trust and a 
score of other manipulations and monopolies have been 
reached and regulated; why not by the same means have 
regulated labor trusts? 

All the money makers are up in arms over the prosecu- 
tion of rich criminals because it hurts business. Do not 
strikes, boycotts, and other like impositions hurt business? 



390 RETROSPECTION 

As the law forbids iniquitous trusts, combinations of 
capital, injurious monopolies to control industry, so let it 
forbid aggregations of agitators for evil purposes, conspir- 
acies for concocting schemes of retaliation, threats of ven- 
geance and boycotting for the intimidation of legitimate 
traffic, labor strikes to the injury of the community. 

Labor strikes are made in order to bring employers of 
labor to terms. If this were all the two might be left to 
fight it out. But the punishment falls largely upon the 
people, upon innocent persons, who have come to depend 
upon the traffic, and from whom the traffic derives its sup- 
port. It is unjust, unnecessary, and often criminal to place 
this imposition upon the people. 

Labor should have at the hands of the American people 
the amplest protection, with labor unions as free as air, but 
let it be protection by representatives of the people, and 
let unionism be neither lawless nor incendiary. 

Of course laborers have a right to strike, that is to quit 
work whenever they like, but in so doing they have no 
right to enter into a conspiracy to injure others. 

If the people have the right to control the monopolists 
of money, they have a right to control the monopolists of 
industry; if they have the right to restrict the sordid 
selfishness of wealth, they have the right to restrict the sor- 
did selfishness of labor, and it is their bounden duty to 
do so. 

For surely there is no iniquity perpetrated by corporate 
capital greater than that of the self -constituted manipula- 
tors of labor, who hold in their iron grasp masses of men 
pledged to do their will. 

We have suffered long enough from the insults and im- 
positions of vulgar and irresponsible leaders of labor, who 
do not hesitate to jeopardize the lives and interests of hun- 
dreds of thousands of American citizens to obtain an ad- 
vantage or gratify their vengeance. 

The working-man should be made to feel that he is part 
of the people who govern this country, and as such he can 



THE THROES OF LABOR 391 

be his own master and regulate his own affairs as well as 
to remain in the leading-strings of designing men and em- 
ploy them to manage for him. He should be made to feel 
that capital is economized labor. For there is no capital, 
aside from unearned increments, which did not spring in 
the beginning from the economized fruits of labor, howso- 
ever many times it may have since been appropriated, to 
be finally lodged in the vaults of some skilful financier. 

Strikes should be abolished, and can be, if the people 
choose, with as great ease and certainty as can be made and 
enforced the universal peace compact now talked of and 
which some day will be accomplished. There is no evil 
that time will not cure. Labor strikes are not only an evil 
but an infamy. They will remain only so long as the 
people shall elect to endure them. And when they are 
relegated to the region now occupied by mediseval tyranny, 
slavery, autos-da-fe, and the rest, men will look back with 
wonder at the stupidity of twentieth century society. 

Two causes have operated to bring about a condition of 
things which render it easy and necessary for government 
to take matters into its own hands, to stop once for all 
strikes and boycotting, and settle wages and all the varying 
issues between capital and labor peaceably and sensibly, 
even to the servile custom of tipping, which has become 
simply blackmail fed by cowardice. 

The first cause is universal public sympathy in favor 
of protecting the working-man by every lawful means, with 
the full recognition of his right to a just share in the wealth 
which he creates, and a corresponding feeling against the 
tyrannies of capitalists and employers who have so long 
withheld his rights. 

Proper measures should be taken for the protection of 
the public, the beneficiaries of labor and capital; for the 
protection of American men and boys in their constitu- 
tional rights, the right of the men to manage their own 
affairs and the right of the boys to learn any trade they 



392 RETROSPECTION 

choose, and when and how they choose; for the protection 
of the working-man from the wrongs of capital on one 
side and the iniquitous influence of the domineering man- 
agers of labor on the other side. 

It was fortunate for labor that the McNamaras were 
caught and punished, else some might imagine that dyna- 
miting was the proper method for the vindication of rights. 
It was fortunate that they confessed their crimes, else the 
leaders of labor would never have ceased to cry martyrdom, 
the suborning of witnesses, and the bribing of jurors to 
convict innocent men ! 

Aside from the organizations for secret assassinations, 
the open outrages permitted by the government, as brutal- 
izing strikes, boycotts, and the interdiction laid on boys 
who would learn a trade are a disgrace to American institu- 
tions and a reflection upon a republican form of govern- 
ment. 

When the labor leaders, in order to display their usual 
inexpensive zeal for the alleged interest of their victims 
propose the abolition of the poll tax, the last pittance paid 
by impecunious citizenship in return for protection, in all 
the rights of the largest contributors to the support of the 
government, for free schools, parks, hospitals, asylums, and 
penitentiaries, it should bring a blush to the face of every 
honest working-man that his manhood, his public spirit, 
his patriotism should ever be held in such low esteem. 

Boycotting and blacklisting are crimes against the 
rights of man of which any respectable government should 
be ashamed; labor strikes are a crime against American 
citizenship, subverting public utilities and bringing loss 
and inconvenience upon the people. 

Early in the game of graft Charles Francis Adams said 
that if the government did not get the railways the rail- 
ways would get the government. He might now with equal 
correctness say that if government does not put down 
demagogical labor leadership demagogical labor leadership 



THE THROES OF LABOR 393 

will put down the government. For already we have before 
us the humiliating spectacle of the United States begging 
the labor leaders to withhold their hand a little longer be- 
fore striking down at a single blow the great industries of 
the nation. 

What is American republicanism worth if it cannot 
regulate its simplest internal affairs? So craven is the 
office-seeker for votes that he will sell the highest and 
holiest interests of his country, the vital principles of prog- 
ress for his own selfish advancement. While anarchy is 
cropping out in the ranks of both labor and capital, tend- 
ing toward civil war, the great issues of the day are with 
the politician seeking reelection to office rather than with 
the statesman studying the interests of his country. 

Europe has not been able to stop strikes these hundred 
years, you would say. Well, so much the worse for Europe, 
America can exterminate them to-morrow if she will. 

The public need and sooner or later will have protec- 
tion from the leaders of labor; above all the working-man 
needs protection from them, from their tyrannical ways 
and sinister influence. 

It is necessary that some reconciling agency should be 
established between labor and capital, governed by prin- 
ciples of honesty and justice, to formulate and carry into 
execution laws governing these two essentials of progress. 

Another reason demanding government control at the 
present time is the ever-increasing arrogance of the labor 
leaders, who have become by their increasing strength and 
unrestrained lawlessness a far more subtle and insidious 
enemy of the working-man than ever was corporate capital 
or the employers of labor. 

The working-man is the backbone of the nation ; he sus- 
tains its institutions and produces its wealth, while the 
drones of society sit back scornfully regarding his efforts 
while fattening on his industry. He must have his unions, 
but unionism must be cleansed of its poisons and ini- 



394 RETROSPECTION 

purities, of its sharks and anarchists who stir up strife, 
doing no work themselves but preying on the labor of 
others. 

To say that this cannot be done is absurd; to say that 
it will not be done until after open and bloody conflict may 
be true. If our government is good for anything, that is 
to say, if the people were awake to the importance of 
prompt action, the arrogance of labor and the artifice of 
capital could be easily enough controlled, and better now 
than later. Doubtless the labor leaders mean well — some 
of them — at least for themselves. It cannot be denied, 
however, that many of them are self-seeking and brutal. 
It cannot be denied that the best of them will oppose the 
right and uphold the wrong in support of unionism. And 
the controllers of capital are worse, if possible, in all these 
several respects than the controllers of labor. 

Much breath is wasted in discussing peace movements 
abroad while offering no practical cure, the result being 
the increase of standing armies and the enlargement of 
battle-ships only to fall into disuse upon completion. A 
peace movement at home, along practical lines, would be 
much more sensible occupation for Americans just now. 

Unionism is essential to the independence and economic 
well being of the working class, but it must be recognized 
and regulated by government, as corporate capital is recog- 
nized and regulated, and not left to demagogues and 
dynamiters. 

The doctrines at present preached by the self-consti- 
tuted apostles of labor are for the most part unsound. 
Their promised rewards are many of them not actual 
benefits but hallucinations. They point to increased wages 
and shorter working days, throwing the blame of the in- 
evitable increased cost of living in consequence upon mer- 
cenary monopolists when the fault is their own. Notwith- 
standing the long and learned discussions as to the cause 
of the increased cost of living, any one should be able to 
see that it lies mainly in the increased cost of labor, as labor 



THE THROES OF LABOR 395 

enters into everything and is the chief factor in economics 
and the vital quantity in production, mechanical and agri- 
cultural. 

Then there are the alleged advantages of bodily ease, 
recreation, and mental culture, which too often find expres- 
sion in the whiskey shops for the men and the cheap bargain 
counter for the women. Let the working-man be taught, 
instead, that his only path of advancement is in economy, 
not in giving the least possible amount of work for the most 
pay, but in doing all the work he is able to do and in the 
best possible manner, with economy and proper culture 
of mind; for economy is capital, and the only pathway to 
advancement. 

Upon the arrest of the perpetrators of the Los Angeles 
outrages the high priest of labor leaders cried out, "It is 
a conspiracy ! It is the assassination of unionism ! ' ' know- 
ing his foolish charges to be false. 

Labor leaders everywhere then levied special tribute 
on the working-men, and began collecting money from 
them to defray the cost of delivering these innocent lambs 
from the machinations of evil-minded men bent on their 
destruction, on the destruction of unionism and the degra- 
dation of labor, knowing that their words were not true, 
knowing that the prisoners were guilty, if not of these 
particular charges, at least of similar acts elsewhere. Many 
others of those high in authority also knew that the Los 
Angeles assassins were guilty, and that others of the labor 
lords were their accomplices, assisting them in their diabol- 
ical work. And knowing this, all the while they kept 
raking in and applying to their own use large contributions 
from sympathetic and unsuspecting working-men. Such 
are the shepherds of the shorn sheep of labor. 

What then is the proper wage? That should be for a 
commission of upright and intelligent men to determine, 
men appointed by the government for every place, who 
with constant study of conditions and requirement should 
declare as between supply and demand, progress and re- 



396 RETROSPECTION 

straint, the well-being of labor and the prosperity of the 
community what would be best for all concerned. 

This most important question affecting society should 
not be left to floating aliens. If let alone the labor wage 
would be regulated, like the interest on money in advanced 
communities, by the law of supply and demand. But labor 
is too important a factor in economics to be left to its own 
devices; there is capital on one side and the self -consti- 
tuted lords of labor on the other side who each would have 
a hand in the matter. 

The proper wage, the one and the only one that is right 
and fair to both sides, is the highest the employer can pay 
without injury to the industry. If the industry is killed 
or crippled from excessive wages, or from any other cause, 
the injury falls on both labor and capital. If to the work- 
ing-man is given less than the industry can afford to pay, 
he is defrauded, and a government commission should be 
better able to determine this to the satisfaction of all con- 
cerned than a labor council. 

Moderate wages are not the working-man's enemy but 
his friend. High wages, so high as to be unfair, exorbitant, 
or more than the industry will justify are not of advantage 
to the wage-earner, because they lead to improvidence and 
thriftlessness and destroy the source of supply. The aver- 
age wage-earner with an increase of wages does not in- 
crease his savings but his expenditures. 

Illness and industrial accidents when unprovided for 
are sure to lower the standard of living more than increase 
of wages raises them. The tendency of all who live upon 
a fixed income, whether professional man, wage-earner, or 
man or woman of leisure is to live better with increase of 
income rather than save for a rainy day, or for increase of 
capital. 

Wage-earners as a rule do not save money for industrial 
accidents or illness; with increased pay they spend more. 
Any little insurance they may have is spent on the last ill- 
ness and the funeral, and the more insurance money the 



THE THROES OF LABOR 397 

better the funeral. It does not matter how you call it, or 
what arguments are used against it, the fact is palpable 
that a too high rate wage stifles industry to the death alike 
of capital and labor. A too high rate wage is prohibitory 
in building and manufactures. 

The per hour plan is the only fair measurement for 
time work, and the piece-work is the only fair way to reckon 
the value of any labor when it can be done. But because 
it is fair the labor leaders do not like it, as the better 
workmen secure the better part of the pay. A reduction 
in the price per piece such as will bring the pay of the more 
expert down within reasonable limits, would place the less 
expert below a living wage. Of course a shorter day, 
fewer hours is simply an increase of wages, that is why the 
unions do not want a rate per hour. 

The natural law of labor is for wages to advance in 
times of prosperity and to decline when business slackens. 
To subvert this law and compel high wages in dull times is 
to strike at the fundamental principle of economics. It 
brings disaster by arresting progress and throwing industry 
back upon itself, when proper care and conciliatory nurs- 
ing would help to tide over evil days and restore prosperity. 
Thus may plainly be seen the suicidal policy of forcing 
upon labor a fictitious value when moderation would soon 
restore the industrial equilibrium. 

Not all union men by any means are in favor of the 
present labor restrictions. They hate labor leaders and 
abhor their methods; all the same a good wage and easy 
work provided at hand seems better than fighting at a dis- 
advantage. Many are against present methods as unsound, 
unnecessary, and inflicting on the cause of unionism more 
harm than good. 

The working-man inherently and in the abstract is 
neither better nor worse than others. In his occupation 
he is for the most part better; he is better than the non- 
worker, because work is better than idleness; he is better 
than the idle rich, for theirs is the worst form of idleness. 



398 RETROSPECTION 

and because luxury and laziness breed corruption. As a 
citizen he is not less selfish nor more patriotic than the 
average voter. 

In the artisan class are many able and high-minded 
men. The typical American mechanic has no superior for 
intelligence and efficiency within the limits of his craft. 
He understands the labor leaders better than they imagine. 
He deprecates their necessity but he sees no other remedy 
than that of retaliatory self-defense; to fall unprotected 
into the hands of capital were worse even than the present 
bondage to the labor lords. 

The next lower class, the common laborer, is not a very 
high order of humanity, being lately from the lower strata 
of European society. For low-grade work, for farm and 
factory, he is far inferior to the Chinese. 

As against two millions of organized workers and two 
millions of workers not organized, there are in the United 
States four millions of non- workers, peregrinating or fixed, 
that is to say tramps or loafers, out of whom the labor- 
leaders can make nothing and do not therefore trouble 
them. It is a small force after all thus to be allowed to 
dominate industry and politics while the wealth and intel- 
ligence of the community sit supinely paralyzed, afraid to 
speak aloud their thoughts and wishes. 

Less sympathy would be wasted on this class of drunken 
and diseased laziness if good people were more familiar 
with their tendencies. What the farmer most of all wants 
and cannot get is what neither the American, the Euro- 
pean, nor the African will give him, that is steady, reliable 
service. None of these want work in the country; some 
of them do not want work in the city. 

After all these bandits of labor are not so greatly to 
be blamed. They are as God made them, only worse, as 
Sancho Panza says. They could do nothing of themselves; 
they could not elect their men to office, nor hold in their 
grasp the industries of the nation unless aided by moneyed 
men of influence who thus retaliate on good government for 



THE THROES OF LABOR 399 

daring to prosecute rich criminals, and who seem to enjoy 
their revenge until nauseated by the vile odor of their own 
making. 

When they talk so glibly of the enemies of labor, the 
assassination of unionism, and the like, it is simply as a 
blind to lead their dupes off on a false scent. Labor has no 
enemies, nor the laborer, nor yet unionism in itself, nor 
any other proper form of organization ; it is only the abuse 
of these rights and privileges that fair-minded citizens 
object to> and this the over-lords know full well. 

Let us hope that in time unionism will develop intel- 
ligence enough to know that the working-men can have no 
greater enemy than bad leaders, and that up to the present 
time, in Europe and America, they have had few others 
than bad men at the head of their organizations, men ready 
to ?o orifice all who work for a living to their own selfish 
and indolent interests. 

Capital concentrates and organizes for the purpose of 
exploiting the people and obtaining the fruits of their in- 
dustry without due compensation. Labor concentrates and 
organizes for the purpose of exploiting the people and ob- . 
taining the fruits of ability and economy without due com- 
pensation. 

A sickening scene, and a shame to any free enlightened 
American city, what I saw yesterday on Market Street, 
in San Francisco, six burly fellows perambulating before 
a clothing- store softly crying, " Unfair! unfair to union 
labor! " safe-guarded meanwhile by the police, the labor 
vote being of importance. A sickly sight, a quiet respect- 
able citizen hounded to his destruction by emissaries of 
union labor plying their nefarious trade under protection 
of the law and in the midst of a far too timid and indiffer- 
ent community. 



CHAPTER XXI 

MODERN JOURNALISM 

THERE are men who are inherently honest. Men made 
that way, no one knows when or how; men so en- 
gendered neither by heredity nor environment, nor by any 
known process, but who stand apart unfathomable, un- 
alterable; who will make no compromise with dishonor, in 
whatsoever garb, or whether on behalf of oneself or another. 

There are also those who are congenitally oblique, who 
know only perfidy, never having experienced the feeling of 
uprightness. Of the latter are the victims of predatory 
wealth in and out of the state prison; of the former, well, 
sometimes one is found in journalistic circles. Yet it is 
not a pleasant reflection that the quality of unapproach- 
able integrity is not conducive to success in the ordinary 
walks of journalism. 

Is it then impossible for the owner or manager of a large 
successful newspaper to be fair and truthful? I think 
such cases have been known, and might again be seen in 
a strong personality welded to truth and rectitude. But 
the other is usually considered the best business way, easier 
and more successful, that is to say where success is measured 
by money with no discount for quality. 

A newspaper man, like most men of affairs, is in busi- 
ness for one paramount purpose in addition to the several 
minor purposes. Either the main purpose or purposes or 
one of the minor purposes is money in one form or another. 
Money makes the newspaper go, and even the most parsi- 
monious and mercenary of proprietors will pour it out 

400 



MODERN JOURNALISM 401 

like water to increase the strength or influence of his jour- 
nal. It is only by using even parsimonious money lavishly 
that great newspapers are made. 

There are several aspirations other than that for money 
that may dominate the avaricious owner of a great news- 
paper, who hugs to his heart its one great desire, ever seek- 
ing to hide itself, however unsuccessfully, beneath the dis- 
play of assumed patriotism and the current news. 

Political ambition is among the more common of the 
not too successfully hidden of these occult inspirations. 
Horace Greeley greatly desired to be president of the United 
States; nor would some others decline the position to-day 
were it offered. It is reported of the elder Bennett that 
he would scandalize his dead grandmother for sensational 
copy. 

Hate exercises a predominating influence oftener than 
love. If the owner of the paper has a malignant as well 
as mercenary disposition, he will do much to injure his 
neighbor, or try to do so, for when temper appears influ- 
ence disappears. 

Social climbing sometimes breaks out in virulent form 
such as appears in political climbing, though for so fatuous 
and empty a reward there are fewer aspirants. The 
political climber who reaches the desired goal is envied by 
many; the society climber who prostitutes a journal pre- 
tending to respectability for a seat in snobdom is usually 
an upstart who brings upon himself the contempt of friends 
and enemies alike, and whose social elevation renders his 
vulgarity only the more conspicuous. As to the daily and 
weekly blackmailers and panderers to high crime, they also 
have their day. 

There are journalists so-called which are below the 
plane of possible criticism. 

It is to be regretted that so many of our leading news- 
papers are the property of wealthy men whose primary 
purpose is not simply to print the news and discuss fairly 
the important questions of the day, but rather to effect 



402 RETROSPECTION 

some ulterior object, to secure some business advantage, 
to punish an enemy or gratify an ambition. Such a person 
is seldom influenced, in assuming the cares of journalism, 
by considerations of public benefit, as in the purification 
of politics or in elevating the standards of morality and 
intellectual culture. Endless professions are made in these 
directions but they are for the most part insincere. Hence 
it is that so little of what we read in the papers rings true, 
particularly in the editorials. One never can tell what a 
newspaper man believes from what he says. 

Do not we often find the writer of editorials posing as 
the embodiment of all knowledge, of all patriotism, giving 
forth to the world the unadulterated concentration of wis- 
dom, posing as one of the best citizens, as a model of high- 
mindedness, of learning, purity and integrity? And we 
ask ourselves, are editors so, or are they common humanity, 
like the rest of us, very common humanity, perhaps, selfish 
and self-seeking always, brutal and vulgar sometimes, in- 
different to the public well-being, untruthful and insincere 
wherever their own dislikes, or prejudices, or the fancied 
interests of their paper are concerned? 

We may expect the usual column of praise of the public 
acts and private virtues of the official from whom a favor 
is preferred, a franchise or a subsidy secured. Praise of the 
beauty, dress, and accomplishments of the society leaders 
and their proteges through whom there may be hope to 
rise in the social scale. Praise of whatever money is paid 
to praise, and of whatever will tend to increase circulation. 
If the owner has an important case coming before the su- 
preme court the paper is pretty sure to oppose the recall 
of the judiciary. 

The reader is apt to forget that the newspaper is only a 
mouthpiece, not a bunch of brains ; yet if its evil influence 
is sufficiently sterilized by the intelligence of the com- 
munity no great damage is done. At the same time, being 
without principle, and guided by no policy save that which 
considers the personal interests or inclinations of the owner, 



MODERN JOURNALISM 403 

the reader is- loath to accept the somewhat dogmatic and 
insistent instructions of the writer. 

Yet in some respects an advance has been made in jour- 
nalism during the last quarter of a century. The columns 
of editorial abuse, one of another, with which readers were 
wont to be regaled, have for the most part disappeared, 
short strictures having taken their place. 

The wealthy and well-established of these newspapers 
have most of them passed the incipient stage in journalistic 
development of blackmail and blackguardism, emerging 
upon an ostensible plane of respectability; but these, like 
the others less advanced fall before the allurements of the 
tempter, accept the bribe and drop into line. Then, after 
playing the harlot until the pay stops, they wipe their lips 
saying, "I have done no evil," and are ready to hire them- 
selves out again. 

Let the discriminating reader pause a moment as he 
opens out his 60-page bundle of print and pictures and 
analyze the subconscious conceptions running through his 
brain, and what is the result ? What may he expect to en- 
counter when he begins to read ; what must he be prepared 
to accept, to oppose, to repudiate, to regard with indiffer- 
ence? 

The writers themselves, editors and reporters, are not 
responsible for the principles of the paper, or for the lack 
of them; they write as they are told to write, and as they 
are paid for writing. Therefore for the color of what is 
coming we must not look into their minds, but rather con- 
sider who and what may be the impelling force behind 
them. 

The newspaper press is bound by necessity to reflect 
the people and the times. We look into it only to see mir- 
rored ourselves, the worst part of some of us the better part 
of others, the most deleterious influence of all acting on the 
owner, who deals in human passions and events, warping 
facts to suit his fancy. 

Much of what is printed we can set aside as hollow 



404 RETROSPECTION 

sham, as matters in which we are not interested, and 
through which it is useless to wade. 

Vituperation, yes pages of it, displaying envy and hate, 
plentifully besprinkled with lies and blackguardism, with 
personal abuse or dirty linen to wash. There is a class of 
morgue-loving society ghouls who read such stuff with 
avidity, but from which one of clean mind turns in dis- 
gust. 

And so on. Even the current news, domestic and for- 
eign, we can get only as it comes colored with the pro- 
clivities and prejudices of another. 

Such as this and much more runs unconsciously through 
the mind as one unfolds the paper and glances at the more 
conspicuous headlines. And so it comes about that such 
journalism fails in its intention and influence, fails to call 
forth the expected admiration and sympathy in favor of 
the owner, but tends rather to excite aversion and contempt. 

The answer is that the modern newspaper, as sent forth 
by a wealthy owner, is not intended for a class with pure 
tastes and refined intellects, and that these if they would 
get the news must take the ditch-water. 

"Give the public what it wants," Pulitzer used to say. 
It seems that it wanted oceans of rot, in a form invented 
by Mr. Pulitzer called sensational journalism, and which 
returned to him thirty millions of dollars, net. 

Few governors have ever dared to defy the public press 
as Governor Johnson has done, but Governor Johnson dares 
to defy anything. He knows full well that when the foul- 
ness of a newspaper is exposed, that when its lies, its hypoc- 
risies, its sales of the last shred of decency it may have 
once possessed its power to harm is ended. It can only 
emit a foulness which engenders disgust. "I want the 
people of this state to know and judge for themselves/' 
said Governor Johnson, referring to certain strictures 
made by him regarding the tendency of journalism to 
vilify, blackmail, or praise according as they are paid. 



MODERN JOURNALISM 405 

"Wherever we see a rotten nest we are breaking it up, 
wherever we find a crook in the public service we are driv- 
ing him out. This sort of thing dosn't please the moral 
engines of the press to which I've just referred, but it 
pleases me, and it's the kind of government California is 
going to have for three and a half years more. ' ' 

There is plenty of ability, there are energy intelligence 
and grit, but there is a lack of manhood in the manage- 
ment of the press, a lack of honesty and sincerity. 

A newspaper man wants a subsidy. He begins incon- 
tinently to praise the official through whom it may be ob- 
tained, and to work for his reelection. Is that bribery or 
only blarney? Whatever it is the people- pay for it. 

A newspaper wants more circulation. It first works 
up good government, and helps to put criminals in prison ; 
then to the disgust of its readers it whips round and 
twaddles of forgiveness and the release of the same evil- 
doers. In thus attempting to secure first the good citizen 
patronage, then the patronage of the evil-minded, it brings 
upon itself the contempt of all. 

Money can do great things, but there are some things 
that money cannot do; it cannot establish and keep suc- 
cessfully alive along modern lines a large daily news- 
paper upon the principle of truthfulness and integrity 
in all things, no more than a woman can live and move 
in the upper circles of society and always speak the truth. 
Why? Because people do not want that sort of paper, 
and will not be influenced by that sort of woman. 

The modern successful newspaper of the ponderous 
class is a concoction of current events which are of in- 
terest to all, with pages of specialties of interest only to a 
class, high or low, usually low, with sections emanating 
from brains warped by nature but with added disorgan- 
ization for the purpose, a sports section; a comic section, 
which eradicates in the youthful imagination whatever 
taste for art it might otherwise possess; a section of oafs 
14 



406 RETROSPECTION 

and monstrosities, pictures by an artist of the insane asy- 
lum and text of the dime novel order by a scandal sec- 
tion; a political section made up of praise for one side 
and denunciatory lies for the other; an expert of disor- 
dered mind and dedicated to idiots; columns of murders, 
divorces, criminal trials, showing the seamy side of human 
nature for those of seamy tastes, with plenty of suicides, 
robberies, and rapes; pages of scandal, vituperation, and 
personal abuse, for those who love scandal and personal 
abuse; weak and washy editorials carefully constructed 
for weak and washy intellects; faces of reporters and 
writers staring the reader out of stomach from January 
to December, the delectable ensemble lighted with a halo 
of lies and hypocrisy not the least among its several at- 
tractions. And why those faces; is it necessary to- inflict 
them on the reader three hundred times a year? 

This for the great dailies; worse if possible, if any- 
thing can be worse, are the current weeklies, organs of 
high society and high crime, who sell their wares to whom- 
soever will buy and then like Ruef sell the purchaser and 
beg him to buy again. They display neither reason nor 
principle, but only bald mendacity, where their interests 
are concerned. 

In all personal or partizan issues the best journalist is 
he who is most skilled in misrepresentation. 

At the beginning of the high-crime prosecution in San 
Francisco the proprietor of one of these journals, which 
had hitherto been quite respectable, came to me asking 
advice as to which side he should take, that of honesty 
and the welfare of the community or that of criminality 
and demoralization. I soon saw that he had already made 
up his mind to the latter course. "I am not in business 
for my health," he said. " There is sure and easy money 
on the side of money ; there are hard knocks and no pay 
if I go against them." 

"How about the integrity of your journal?" I asked. 
"Is that worth nothing?" 



MODERN JOURNALISM 407 

"It is worth what it will fetch in money," he said. "I 
have a family." 

"Then as a member of this community you are ready 
to fly the skull and cross-bones, and cry with the rest of 
them, 'To hell with morality; give us money.' " 

"I am afraid that is about the size of it," with a 
metallic smile. "The others are doing it." 

"Is it not rather a small sum, this for which you are 
selling yourself and betraying your city?" 

"Oh, come off! It's all I can get, and more than any 
one else will give." 

So he departed to collect his thirty pieces of silver, 
and sink himself and his paper beneath the contempt of 
good men. He went his way. It was only an effigy of a 
man after all. There was here an opportunity to make 
a good fight for a grand cause. He threw it away, and 
with it threw himself away. It is said that the subsidy 
he received from special interests was a thousand dollars 
a month. Times changed; good government came again 
into power; high crime and reactionary interests having 
no further use for such an organ dropped it, and a once 
valuable property became as tattered rags. 

When he tried to crawl back to his former position, 
his old patrons repudiated him. 

A thousand dollars a month ; some received more, some 
less; six thousand dollars a month for the integrity of the 
press of San Francisco. Divided among the railroads, 
corporations, bankers, and affiliated interests, the cost to 
each was not severe. It was all the goods were worth, 
however, and more, though the valuation would be low 
for respectable journalism. Considerable additions to the 
bribe direct, however, should be made for patronage in the 
way of subscriptions and advertisements. 

A prostituted press. A newspaper run professedly in 
the interests of the public, but actually for the gratifica- 
tion of the passions and prepudices of the owner. 

A prostituted press. What quality of enlightenment 



408 RETROSPECTION 

is that which proceeds from one who writes under orders, 
and what quality of man is it who for pay deals out as 
truth what he knows to be false? 

One may think it a little strange how so many of these 
weekly Jezebels of journalism can live and pay the printer. 
Well, of one way I have many times had experience ever 
since blackmailing became a fine art. 

"I say, mister, let me put your picture on the front 
page, and a page of reading matter inside — write it your- 
self ; only a hundred dollars.' ' 

1 'Go to the devil." 

Such a proposition means pay the money or take your 
medicine, the latter a string of abuse until the liberty and 
purity of the press gets tired. Much as I like cleanliness, 
I prefer filth to the deeper degradation of their praise. 

To say that the greater part of the newspapers printed 
in the United States are a disgrace to the country, a dis- 
grace to the intelligence of the people, is to say what 
every one knows to be true, and what few will deny. 
There is in them an absence of that sincerity and truth, 
of those principles of integrity which, while instructing 
the mind and promoting culture, elevate the political and 
moral well-being of the community. There is an absence 
of right thinking, of right feeling, or I should say, rather, 
an absence of any thinking or feeling at all except such 
as will gratify personal spleen or bring profit to the owner. 

"Well, what are we going to do about it? We love 
scandal; we delight in the misfortunes of others; we read 
with avidity all about the rapes, murders, and incendiaries 
of the day; the infelicities of the rich are especially ex- 
citing, their elevation and downfall, their infidelities and 
divorces ; all who are involved in disgraceful bankruptcies, 
in annoying lawsuits, all who are sent to prison, or are 
in any wise punished for their sins ; we comfort ourselves 
that we are not of these, and that we have no sins, or at 
least none of much importance that are thus far found 
out. Happily we can enjoy all this in our daily paper, 



MODERN JOURNALISM 409 

for our daily papers teach us so to do, and we are willing 
to pay for it; and our good teacher the paper proprietor 
is willing to take the money and call it quits. 

What are we to do about it, to say about it? Nothing. 
My lord proprietor will tell you that he knows his own 
business; that people want claptrap and that if he will 
not give it them, others will; that he doesn't care a damn 
for the well-being or ill-being of the people, or for their 
moral or spiritual nature, or for their growth in grace 
or disgrace; he will print what his patrons want and are 
satisfied to pay for, and that is the sum and substance of 
his moral or immoral philosophy. 

And who shall blame him? Do we blame the skunk 
for its smell or the snake for its sting? God made every- 
thing for some purpose, the newspaperman with the rest, 
only it is a matter of some regret that we must have our 
morning portion served by such a steward. 

Then of what do we complain? We are not complain- 
ing, fair sir, only stating a few facts, only thinking of the 
effect of all this on ourselves, and our children, only think- 
ing that perhaps there is something better in heaven and 
earth than is dreamt of in the philosophy of such base 
contemplation, of such filthy studies as these our mentors 
and opinion-makers serve us, — for one cent per diem, two- 
thirds of it for the lord-proprietor and one-third for the 
poor little devil that sells the papers. 

Much is said of the influence of the newspaper press. 
I have noticed that where the journalist is in earnest and 
honest his words carry weight; where he is plainly lying, 
or writing for pay contrary to his convictions, among in- 
telligent readers he excites only disgust. When Taft 
turned renegade and carried with him the subsidized press, 
which comprised most of the leading newspapers, what 
they all of them together said made but little impression 
except upon the lower or baser element of society. 

Some of the best paying newspapers have little or no 
influence which affects public opinion, or sways the minds 



410 RETROSPECTION 

of their readers. They may print the news and be good 
advertising mediums, while the editorials and outbursts 
of spleen mingled with senseless twaddle fall to the ground 
unheeded and harmless. 

We need not ask why so few of kind heart and good 
character can conduct a successful newspaper in the 
United States. The people want the news, they want 
truthful news, at least there must be some truth in it, but 
they want it highly seasoned, and with plenty of spicy 
scandal. 

The great newspaper proprietor, whether risen from 
the lower level or the inheritor of wealth, is well hated, 
and in return he hates. This is his one great pride and 
purpose, when not preceded by cupidity; in owning a 
newspaper he can strike from behind his presses without 
fear of a return blow. Though an editor gets killed occa- 
sionally, it only increases the value of the property for 
the heirs; it is a great satisfaction to see the good name 
of an enemy smutted with printers' ink. 

It is sweet to injure those we hate. But there the 
wealthy newspaperman makes a mistake, for howsoever 
much he may injure his enemy he injures himself more. 
When he rolls through his presses his columns of vin- 
dictive spleen he stands there — what? That most con- 
temptible of objects, a man filled with venom, cowardly, 
as he strikes only when at an advantage, a malevolent soul 
naked before the eyes of all men. The worst weapon for 
himself a rich man of vindictive disposition can have, 
and one with which he should never trust himself is a 
newspaper. 

The weekly press of San Francisco has been aptly 
likened to the painted woman, who has sold her honor, 
thrown away all influence for good, and prostituted her- 
self for gain. This may have been the case in some in- 
stances; as a rule this class of journals never had any 
honor and were never anything else but prostitutes. They 
began like many of the dailies, with blackmailing, intend- 



MODERN JOURNALISM 411 

ing to leave it off and become respectable when they could 
afford it. It appears that they have never been able to 
afford it. 

One might imagine from the scrapings of filth from 
their person when the supreme court turned loose upon 
the town the high grafters of the dark era of crime, that 
reform had set in with the gentlemen of the predatory 
press, because of stoppage of pay, when in reality it was 
only a clearing of the decks for a new action. 

Speaking in Congress of the bad effect of vulgar jour- 
nalism on the taste and morals of society Senator Works 
said : 

"Not only does such publication incite others to crime, 
and sometimes to suicide, but it is generally hurtful to 
the morals and sensibilities of the people to read column 
after column of sensational stories of crime and criminals. 
It is impossible to pick up a newspaper to-day without 
seeing story after story of death by violence, horrible 
accidents and other such matters. I think it is high time 
the matter should be given serious consideration." 

In a community where unrestricted license is given, 
the newspaper is a pretty fair index of the mind and 
morals of its readers. With due allowance for the idiosyn- 
crasies of the owner or editor the patron may see in his 
daily paper a tolerably accurate reflection of himself. 

In taking up a paper of this kind the feeling of the 
reader is one of indifference or disgust, knowing that not 
a word can be relied on where the interests or prejudices 
of the proprietor intervene. Unconsciously as he opens 
it he considers the character of the sheet and its owner, 
his political, commercial, and social relations and ambi- 
tions ; if he is a great liar or only a small one, and regulates 
his expectations and valuations accordingly. 

So long as the public press is ruled by individual pas- 
sions or private interests we must not be surprised some- 
times to find our mentors mercenary, vindictive, and 
brutal. We must not be surprised to see any good impulse 



412 RETROSPECTION 

distorted, any good man besmeared with calumny by 
lying tongues. 

Which reminds me of a literary free lance who once 
came to me for employment. It appeared that he had 
acted as editor of a religious journal for small pay, as in 
his writings he might follow the tenets of his faith; but 
previously he had taught in a private school with off- 
color orthodoxy. At the school the amount of salary had 
been agreed upon, after which the new teacher was notified 
that an extempore morning prayer would be expected of 
him. ''I can't do that for the money/ ' he replied. "I 
will read you a prayer if you like, but if I am to furnish 
originality with faith, I must be paid for it." 

In almost every large city the leading newspapers are 
devoted to special interests, though covered as far as 
possible by matters of general consequence. The owner 
of the paper engages writers to do his bidding, and they 
write as they are told. 

A journal that will sell itself, sell its city, sell the 
owner's integrity, if he has any, and which for years 
denounces decency, opposes the punishment of rich crim- 
inals, sustains official vice in every form, and then as soon 
as the pay stops turns and talks about the wickedness of 
bribery, the loathsomeness of vice, and the like, has sunken 
too low for ordinary scorn; yet such is the not infre- 
quent course. 

As compared with eastern journalism the west dis- 
plays more boldness and originality as well as more coarse- 
ness and slang. Though still a power, it has lost much 
of its influence, apparently expecting the public to believe 
more than half it says. 

It is a singular fancy some rich men have that by 
controlling certain of the newspapers they can control 
public opinion. They do not realize how little influence 
the paid manipulators of the press have, how transparent 
are their untruths, and how little attention is given to 



MODERN JOURNALISM 413 

anything they can say on any question in which they or 
their masters have an interest. 

Any public journal, in order to carry much weight 
with it, must have in appearance at least an air of fair- 
ness or disinterestedness. If behind the veil the cloven 
foot of premeditated purpose is seen, words are as idle 
wind. 

We go to hear the speaker, or preacher, who tells us 
the things we like to hear. We read the newspaper that 
takes our own view of the questions of the day. We 
regard with suspicion any change of purpose or policy 
on the part of our editor and begin to look about for the 
cause. And we generally find it. The journalist does not 
deceive to the extent that he imagines. 

Let us hope ere long to see the progressive principle, 
which is good government, equal rights, purity in politics, 
the best in life for all the people, become not only the 
foundation of a new political party, the meaningless terms 
democrat and republican, both rotten with iniquity, for- 
ever discarded, but the basis also of all respectable jour- 
nalism, from which all efforts at misrepresentation, all 
lies, all cant, hypocrisy, backbiting, blackguarding, and 
the usual roll of revenges shall be eliminated. 



CHAPTER XXII 

VAGARIES OF SOCIETY 

AN eminent London physician attributes the neurotic 
temperament of high class society to inherited 
wealth and the absence of laudable effort. Wealthy par- 
entage and luxurious environment tend to weakness of 
mind sometimes bordering on imbecility. Particularly is 
this the case with regard to succession in the families of 
European sovereigns and the aristocracy, whose mental 
condition on the average is below the normal, a lament- 
able number every year lapsing into lunacy. Among these 
he has noticed that the first born, owing to the unstable 
condition of the young parents, is more timid and hys- 
terical if possible than the others, and he suggests by way 
of some mitigation of the evil that the English law of 
inheritance should be changed so that instead of the first- 
born the second or third son should be invested with the 
succession. 

This position is ably sustained by Professor J. Fried- 
jung, of Vienna, as well as by the learned Karl Pearson, 
the former having placed under examination one hundred 
offspring of aristocratic families and finding only thirteen 
of them normal, while eighteen were severely neuropathic 
and sixty-nine displayed nervous unstability. 

That this evil has spread to America and extends over 
a wide range there is no question. The children of 
wealthy parents, neglected, pampered, or nagged accord- 
ing to the humor of whoever has charge of them, are poor 
material for American citizenship such as the term once 
implied. 

414 



VAGARIES OF SOCIETY 415 

Offspring of the idle rich, when not neglected for 
frivolities and left to servants are petted and pampered 
to their disadvantage, so that in either case they grow up 
physically and intellectually inferior. One in twenty of 
our able and prominent men may have been born rich, 
overcoming an inherent tendency to decadence. 

High society parents are exposed to many indulgences ; 
eating to gluttony and drinking to drunkenness, dissipat- 
ing in a greater or less degree body and mind, but oftener 
dwindling away in inanity to an empty shell. 

Alcoholic parentage is as bad for the poor as for the 
rich; but though there may be more drunkenness among 
the poor there is less drinking than among the rich. So 
with regard to crime; many criminals are found among 
the poor, more criminals exist among the rich, whether 
found or not. 

Howsoever much or little we may accept of the the- 
ories of the learned men of science, the fact is palpable 
that race deterioration attends luxury and laziness, and 
that luxury and laziness attend high society, by which 
term is not meant the best society, but rather the class 
faineant of the Merovingian kings, the frothy class that 
floats on the top in wealth and idleness, and whose dis- 
reputable doings are chronicled with due eclat in the 
journals of the day. 

It is poor policy blaming high society for its low 
birth rate. The social economist will tell you that the 
fewer there are of that class the better. They are of no 
benefit to the commonwealth, no blessing to humanity, and 
no ornament to the race. 

In plant life for the betterment of the fruits we select 
kind and quality; in animal life we choose the best for 
breeding. It is only the human race that is left in its 
propagation to run its own course. 

The body social in the United States, that is to say 
those aspiring to the upper realms or who fancy them- 
selves already there, has greatly changed in its component 



416 RETROSPECTION 

parts during the last two decades. Consult the society 
columns of the newspapers, and we find nine-tenths of 
the names foreign. We were once an English colony, then 
an Anglo-American people; now we are Latin, Slav, or 
Teuton; if we want Anglo-Saxon society we must go to 
England for it. 

The idle rich, in common with our later importations 
of the lower classes from Europe, are breeding for Ameri- 
can citizenship a race of pygmies, diminutive in body and 
mind, features pinched and form puerile, their presence 
especially noticeable in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and 
New York. 

Classes of society, class distinctions exist in imagina- 
tion rather than in reality. Strictly speaking there is no 
society. In an economic sense, or collectively, there are 
the people, but as a fashion, society long ago fell by reason 
of dead weight, decay, and incoherence, and was broken 
into fragments, leaving only cliques, sets, coteries. Each 
of these cliques or coteries calls itself society, some of them 
really believe that they are something of the sort and the 
only pure article. 

Louis XIV with France at his feet was society. A 
vain pompous profligate, with courtesans as councilors 
and never a wholesome thought in all his gilded halls, 
this man or monster was society, as w T as his confrere 
Charles of England. The king can do no evil; society can 
do no evil. Napoleon of Corsica, born poor, becoming 
master of Europe became society, the society of the aris- 
tocrats having suffered decapitation. What the Corsican 
lacked in pedigree he made up in genius, which gave him 
power, which gave him kings for courtiers, princesses for 
ladies in waiting, and all femininity for mistresses. 

This was high society, its rottenness being limited only 
by the power and human capabilities to rot; and as there 
never before or since has been such power lodged in the 
Tiands of one man, and vicariously in the hands of many 
men and women, we may reasonably regard the Napoleonic 



VAGARIES OF SOCIETY 417 

era as the summit of high society, of which our era is the 
logical sequence. 

Harking back therefore to the days of Josephine, who 
played with fate like other women, and was scarcely the 
peerless matron chaste readers of history delight in, we 
may easily follow down the trail to the present time, 
England copying the fashions of France, the colonies copy- 
ing England while looking at France, and we of the 
present gold-engulfed era copying from them all. 

What then is the nature and circumscription of this 
century-old influence that so subtly entrammels our 
would-be best ones to-day? This answered and the poli- 
ties of society stand revealed. 

First of all the observer takes notice that form takes 
precedence over all other forces; sham stands for sub- 
stance until substance no longer needs sham for its sup- 
port. The king can do no evil; evil in the king's house 
becomes good; we worship the good whether it be evil 
or not. Social forms cover all the sins of the decalogue. 

Sham and conventionalities, and the leaders of high 
society must of necessity be liberally endowed with hypoc- 
risy. They are often estimable persons, but they cannot 
escape the fetters of fashion. 

For a feeder to folly appears the newspaper press, 
where women young and old see so much of themselves, 
their portraits and their prattle, their coming and going, 
their clubs, charities, and reforms, thus obtaining a false 
estimate of themselves tending in no wise to improve their 
mind or manners. 

Social ostracism has been suggested as a punishment 
for high crime, but it will not work. The predatory rich 
are a society or cabal unto themselves. Already lost to 
honor, without patriotism, void of any moral sense, they 
want associates only like themselves. 

At the same time ostracism as applied by the parvenues 
of Fifth avenue has more effect than anything respect- 
ability can do to punish the rich. 



418 RETROSPECTION 

Society smiles at crime and shrieks over a broken con- 
ventionality. It is a powerful force indeed, that which 
impels a woman to make herself hideous, to expose charms 
which are no charms in order to be in the fashion. 

There is no slavery like the slavery of society. There 
is no sentiment so strong, no passion so deep, no force so 
impelling as the forms and fashions by which society leads 
captive its votaries. There is nothing so unbecoming a 
woman will not wear to be in the fashion. There is no 
point of personal beauty she will not sacrifice rather than 
sacrifice the mode, there is nothing so sinful she would 
not dare rather than live outside the pale of convention. 
She would rather not be than not be in vogue. 

This inexorable environment, this obsession of servi- 
tude we carry with us through life and hug to vanquished 
hearts as we pass into death. There is no escape from it. 
We will have it so; there is no wish to escape. If, over- 
taken by a spasm of independence we throw off one tyr- 
anny, immediately we seek for ourselves another tyranny 
and find it. 

It is strongest in the supernatural, but it is always 
present in the natural. If not around us, then in us, and 
the slavery to ourselves is most imperative of all. We are 
not good to ourselves; too often we rule for the worst and 
not for the best; we make idiots of ourselves when per- 
adventure we may not have been born so. 

Even in the ghosts of things long dead, in things long 
known to be dead or never existing, we bow the head in 
servitude, as in religion when we have no religion, though 
once enslaved to its forms then always enslaved, howsoever 
stoutly we may assert that we feel no longer the bondage. 
We are slaves to form, slaves to fashion, slaves to the 
shadow of an idea. The gregarious predilection and the 
instinct of imitation is as fully developed in men and 
women as in sheep. 

Society in the United States is a queer conglomeration. 
In the absence of royalty, nobility, or any accredited aris- 



VAGARIES OF SOCIETY 419 

tocracy there is no standard of qualification. Therefore of 
necessity it is as mixed as the population, and as shallow 
as the average intellect. Among the hundreds of coteries, 
each claiming to be highest and best there are few that 
fraternize. Those who prefer civic purity and cleanliness 
of morals do not care for the companionship of high crim- 
inality, who in their turn have little regard for men or 
women not made of money. Among Celts, Teutons, and 
Anglo-Saxons the Hebrew does not appear as a social fac- 
tor, while the Latin race reckons itself somewhat as a peo- 
ple apart. 

To enter high society successfully the woman must put 
on the wisdom and wickedness of the serpent, and as few 
clothes as possible; the men — well, there are no real men 
in high society. 

Defects are ignored if such can be in high society. 
Veneered vice or absent virtue are not to be mentioned. 
Defects of mind are obscured with silly speech called 
smart, or clever. 

Here then is the skeleton in all its nakedness set up 
during the centuries by our great exemplars of France 
and England, upon which Americans for their own delec- 
tation are to lay on the flesh. 

For the highest of high society now, since decapitation 
in France, we have only the rest of Europe with their royal 
progeny, of which we can be at best but a sorry imitation. 
We lack alas! half of Europe's ancient superstitions, the 
divinity of social absurdities, of royal inheritances, of a 
titled and untitled aristocracy, of a great horde born every 
year into enforced idleness, enforced under penalty of 
social alienation. And so the whole ever-increasing brood 
goes on breeding worthlessness. 

Inherited wealth is bad enough, but inherited title and 
position is worse. Intangible and imaginary merit, worthy 
of some special consideration is bestowed upon some in- 
tangible and imaginary object, call it prince or pig, for 
the pig can as easily inherit as the prince. 



420 RETROSPECTION 

There was no room for modesty, no need of pretense, 
in the good old days of Louis and Charles, when wanton- 
ness was open and rottenness gave forth its true odor. 
Nor is there need of pretense or profession in the twen- 
tieth century coronation of a king, for all is plain buf- 
foonery, pure and simple. 

The few American duchesses and things left over after 
the royal muckraking for actresses, divorcees, and other 
scandal-smitten dames set themselves out to see who can 
spend the most American money in European society. 
From half a million to a million a year is attained by some, 
who all the while think themselves commanding the ad- 
miration of the world, whereas they are only exciting the 
contempt of all sensible people. 

There is not a king in Christendom, or heathendom, 
there is not a potentate in history sacred or profane, who 
has not had wives and mistresses ad libitum. And the 
prince takes after the king, and high society follows the ex- 
ample of the prince, and there is the warrant for every 
abomination. 

But this warrant is not served on the modest American 
maiden when the duke comes for her. Her mother never 
tells her that she will have to share her duke with bar- 
maids and actresses, for of such is the kingdom of Eu- 
rope. 

As a rule, when an American heiress marries a Euro- 
pean nobleman trouble comes. Three out of four are in 
due time divorced, the others hide their disgust and smile 
back at their envious friends at home. Much of this in- 
ternational infelicity is the fault of parents who leave 
their daughters in ignorance as to standards of morality 
here and there, and the difference with which the record- 
ing angel regards wickedness in men and wickedness in 
women. 

Interracial marriages are a failure, breaking up the 
sacred traditions on both sides, and leaving nothing in 
their place. Neither can respect the institutions nor ac- 



VAGARIES OF SOCIETY 421 

cept the religious beliefs of the other; the uniting is in 
no sense a union. 

The Teutonic mentality is turbid and coarse, and into 
whatsoever transformations it may pass these character- 
istics in a greater or less degree will remain. The Latin 
mentality is imaginative and swayed by sentiment; it is 
dark, impulsive, and unreasonable, and mixes ill with any 
other. The Anglo-Saxon is aggressive and domineering, 
ever in pursuit of a definite object, which just now is 
money; the English-speaking race are all possessed with 
a mania for wealth. 

It is because of these oppugnant mentalities that so 
many infelicities arise from international marriages; this, 
and the different purposes in view. The American girl 
marries an Italian title, prompted thereto by her vanity 
and love of notoriety; the man marries for money pure 
and simple. The woman abandons dull duty for a refined 
immorality; the man gives up nothing. 

The ethnic elements of society in the United States are 
undergoing changes, the Teuton and the Celt rapidly sup- 
planting the Anglo-American, who seems to care less and 
less for the frivolities and furbelows of fashionable crowds. 

Heredity and environment both fail when frivolity be- 
comes the leading influence in life. The mind becomes 
dull and feeble from inaction, though heredity for a time 
may help to brace up the intellect as environment affects 
the manners. 

From the aristocratic government of Washington and 
his time, from the plain-living puritanism and stern virtue 
of New England a hundred years ago we have become 
demagogical, not alone politically but socially and finan- 
cially. We keep always on hand a good stock of patriot- 
ism for sale at the lowest price. We have a brilliant 
criminal class living in palaces and putting the slums to 
shame. We have high society of the highest, smart sets 
of the smartest, all striving for supremacy in silliness. 
We have the finest churches filled with the most devout 



422 RETROSPECTION 

worshipers of wealth, whose pulpits are occupied by 
preachers faithful to the customs and creeds of their sup- 
porters. The moneyed element have plenty of leisure in 
which to concoct evil schemes while the masses are at 
work. Hence vice flourishes among the idlers, and high 
society becomes the hot-bed of high crime. In evidence, 
there are the indicted wrong-doers, the bribers and court- 
mongers, the divorcee in fresh war paint, the advanced 
young woman with her bull pup, and the brainless young 
man with his lascivious leer. 

Prominent in this coterie are presidents of public 
service corporations who bribe officials to steal from the 
people for the benefit of their company. These, the high- 
est criminals in the land, are among the leaders in high 
society. 

High society women to some extent are losing their 
hold on men, the elder ones being retained only by the 
table and the sideboard, and the younger ones by the 
buffet and the ballroom. "Women whose undisciplined 
minds dwell chiefly on the froth and vanities of life have 
little in common with men occupied in money-making, 
and the chivalrous attention so common in times past is 
not so often seen. 

Essential to society are wealth and display; without 
these high society would be low indeed. Emblematical 
of moneyless high society is the maid or matron of low 
degree with high swinging arms and graceless wrigglings, 
rejoicing in the possession even of vulgarity if thereby 
attention may be attracted. Like self-made men, self- 
made women, whether of cotton or whalebone, are good 
form in society, high or low. 

The young lady of high society, — she is rich, she is 
pretty, but she knows nothing and can do nothing; for 
which outfitting to meet the issues of life she is indebted 
to her high society mother. 

To inherit wealth is too often to inherit idleness, the 



VAGARIES OF SOCIETY 423 

greatest curse of all. To be denied the privilege of useful 
occupation under penalty of social ostracism is punish- 
ment severer than imprisonment behind the bars. 

As a rule a large fortune is necessary to shine in so- 
ciety, that is to say in certain kinds of society. The best 
society does not need money to brighten it. Where money 
is the dominating influence, then money is the society and 
not the men and women. It is not a very attractive 
woman that requires pearls and diamonds to make her 
attractive. Perhaps she may find comfort in the reflec- 
tion, if she ever reflects, that it is the stones that shine and 
not she herself. 

The ethical ideals of the best society include the man- 
ner of making money as well as the manner of spending 
it. It must be made honestly and spent honestly. It is 
not spending money honestly to entertain fashionable 
criminals at dinner, or help elect a bad man to office, or 
support a clergyman too cowardly to denounce wickedness 
in high places. Women delight in change, and when 
money becomes plethoric in the household of the hitherto 
merely wealthy, an economic readjustment necessarily fol- 
lows. The very wealthy woman is seldom without social 
aspirations. Of what use is money if it will not help her 
to shine in society? It is in this distinction that lies her 
power, and power is as dear to her heart as to that of her 
husband. If she cannot make herself conspicuous in a 
sensible way, then she must do so along the lines of folly. 
To see them act, these whilom washer-women and serving 
men it may be they were, one would imagine that they or 
their forebears had in their veins the imperial purple of 
the Roman emperors. 

There is as wide a distinction between a woman of 
wealth and fashion with charming manners and a lady, 
as there is between a man of wealth and learning or 
genius and a gentleman. 

David Graham Phillips calls the idle rich the parasite 



424 RETROSPECTION 

class ; the idle poor are paupers. The man and the woman 
are drifting every day wider apart, the man to his work, 
the woman to her wiles. The fact that the highest aim of 
a society woman is a life of pleasure is of less sociological 
significance than what her idea of pleasure may be. Some 
find the greatest pleasure in household labor, some in 
charitable work, some in intellectual pursuits; it is not a 
life of good works but of pleasure per se that is here 
referred to. 

When the newly rich, seeing distinction from associa- 
tion with conspicuous social lights, seek admission to the 
charmed circle, its attractions are increased by the diffi- 
culties thrown in the way. The merely wealthy sink to 
insignificance, and nothing in the world is worth while 
except to be one with the gay light-headed, and light-hearted. 

To speak of a class as the best society because of its 
wealth or because of its assumption of superiority is to 
speak foolishly. Evidently the best society is that out of 
which the best proceeds. We cannot logically place in 
that category such names as John D. Rockefeller and 
Leland Stanford, though rich, pious, and founders of col- 
leges, for though many are apparently benefited thereby 
the benefits are as Dead Sea fruit. Such men are only car- 
buncles of society, excrescences of the times. 

Society may be graded up or down, good better best, 
or bad worse worst. Beginning of course with ourselves, 
we and ours being always best, our children, our country, 
our religion. They may be the worst children, country, and 
religion in the world, yet we must pretend that they are 
the best, else, as the poet says, we forfeit fair renown and 
turn to dust unsung, which were a pity. And if we would 
not be concentrated all in self, and meet our doom as such, 
we must continue to regard ourselves and ours as the best ; 
our government our law-makers and law-breakers, the best ; 
our high-crime professors and bribers, our men of special 
interests, of trusts monopolies and grafts, our grabbers of 
land and lumber, of coal iron and oil; our captors of rail- 



VAGARIES OF SOCIETY 425 

ways built by others with the people's money, all, all, the 
best. 

Can that be good society whose component parts are 
bad ? Can it be good society where there is no lady and no 
gentleman? What is a gentleman and what a lady? 
Not good looks, nor fashionable clothes, nor fine houses. To 
be a lady she must have a kind heart, a charitable disposi- 
tion, and a tongue that will not backbite or tell lies. Some 
prefer coarseness to refinement, brutality to gentleness, im- 
morality to decency; people are made differently. Leave 
the pig to enjoy his sty, for he is not amenable to conven- 
tionalities or crystallized social sentiment, though he is not 
indifferent to social ostracism; to most animals this were 
a severe punishment. 

Why should we say the idle rich? Like snakes in Ire- 
land there are no idle rich. Satan provides. 

An aspiring individual builds himself a five million 
dollar house on Fifth avenue. Why this display? Is it 
for honor? He is not honored thereby. Is it for admira- 
tion? He is not admired for it. It is the house if any- 
thing that is admired. Is it for esteem? There is nothing 
estimable about the man. 

As I have said before, it is hardly fair to distinguish 
by the term criminal class the petty pickpockets of the 
slums, the cheap assassins, the bold burglars, the chivalrous 
highwaymen, those alone for whom prisons are made, when 
there are at hand streets full of men in careful dress and 
with pompous mien, any one of whom will accomplish as 
much evil in a single day as all the denizens of the low- 
lying districts will encompass in a year. No, it is among 
the rich and prosperous that we find the true criminal 
class, those who cheat the government, rob the people by 
millions, and dynamite incriminating witnesses ; who grasp 
and secure for themselves alone the natural wealth which 
is the common property of all; bribers, defaulters, merger 
men, public officials, and private promoters; men who fat- 
ten on fraudulent trusts, and with consummate cunning 



426 RETROSPECTION 

and sleight of hand win the wealth of others into their own 
pockets, and who handle other people's money for what 
will stick to their fingers. 

It is one of the curiosities of literature, society, though 
Disraeli did not know it when he made his book. It is 
more of a curiosity now than it was sixty years ago, more 
curious in America at least, if not in England, as nothing 
can be more curious than the roarings and rampancy of 
the fashionable world attending the collapse or crowning 
of a man inheriting monarchy. 

Confining ourselves to the United States, where there 
is folly enough for all the world, we find some six thousand 
towns and cities, each with its society of the several grades, 
as "society," "the best society," "good society," and "not 
in society," each grade having its leader, or one who con- 
siders herself such, — for it is usually a woman, or may be 
several women, each one of whom is sure she is It, and will 
so maintain, bringing forth as proof diamonds and dresses, 
motors, horse equipages, and a hot-house hospitality. Some 
affect brains and prattle Omar Khayyam and Browning; 
some display fingers, and twang the harp; some the light 
fantastic toe, and "Oh! I just love it." And whether in 
reality, were there any reality about it, whether good, better, 
or best, each is sure she is It, the only perfect It, all the 
others, though well enough in their way, being inferior, 
w T hich it were graceful in them to acknowledge. 

This, in their own town or city, on their own hill of 
eminence. Let one cross the line of her queendom into the 
domain of another, she is a distinguished visitor ; in a larger 
city she is a stranger, in New York or Newport she is a no- 
body; should she have the temerity, even though she 
queened it over no mean city at home, to cross the water to 
London or Paris, she is a lost soul in purgatory. For what 
are the highest in New York society before the American 
peeresses in London, or the American peeresses before the 
English peeresses, or the English peeresses before the 
queen, or the queen before sisters of celestial fame ? 



VAGARIES OF SOCIETY 427 

When in society we are not as others see us, else were 
we small indeed ; in or out of society we are to ourselves as 
we see ourselves, else we would not be at all. 

Two or more women with wealth enough to entertain 
and wit enough to attract can declare themselves high 
society and exclude all who might not advantage their 
scheme. Exclusion leads to envy and envy to adulation 
and endless snobbery. 

This smart set, which might more properly be called 
the silly set, is not composed of the best people, though 
there may be some estimable persons among them. They 
lead a sort of bumblebee existence, and fancy all around 
them are anxious to be one of them, as indeed many are, 
but not the better class of the community. Women of mind 
as well as manners, men who take life more seriously, and 
have useful work to do are not attracted by the frivolities 
of fashion. Young men who set out to accomplish some- 
thing in the world cannot dance all night and work all day. 
Hence the so-called best society is usually the worst. The 
social leaders in the more pretentious class are seldom 
known beyond their own precincts, and have no recognition 
in fashionable life elsewhere. 

Each community has its own standard of superiority. 
With the most of them it is wealth, that being the most 
common and most available. Some fall back on ancestry, 
and here and there we see a coterie of learned persons, of 
wits, or artists, who affect to despise wealth, but do not. 

We may regard the high society criminals with some 
degree of leniency when we consider how the seeds of 
wrong-doing were brought and are kept alive in their re- 
ligion. The teaching of Israel was to rob, capture, and kill 
all of another faith, the effect of which injunction has not 
died out to this day, "God bless our gracious queen and 
give her the victory over all her enemies," even if those 
enemies are fighting for their homes in India or Africa, or 
are refusing good English opium in China. 

Of high society Henry Ward Beecher thus testifies: 



428 RETROSPECTION 

"When a whole people, united by a common disregard of 
justice, conspire to defraud, need we ask the cause of 
growing dishonesty among the young? Men of notorious 
immorality, whose dishonesty is flagrant, whose private 
habits would disgrace the ditch, are powerful and popu- 
lar. I have seen a man stained with every sin, except 
those which required courage; into whose head I do not 
think a pure thought has entered for forty years, received 
into respectable families to their everlasting shame. ,, 

"New York's four hundred are as Sodom," said 
George Chalmers, high churchman of Philadelphia. "To 
rule the smart set means to manage gambling parties and 
assist at divorce proceedings." 

High society breeds low citizenship, the young man 
devotes his life to pleasure; his highest thoughts are of 
sport; silly talk with silly girls enrolls him in the smart 
set. He has no more idea of political responsibilities than 
the mule has of music. 

Rather a despicable character in society is the climber. 
The desire to be with those who wish to be thought better 
than they are is not a noble one. The affectation of su- 
periority attracts the shallow-minded, who long in like 
manner to attract sham with superior sham. If in his 
pitiful attempts the social climber succeeds, it is only to 
make his eminence of vulgarity permanent. People are not 
apt to forget the ground from which the climber started. 

It is sad to see the briber, once so honored, now dis- 
graced; it is sad to see the defaulter, once so trusted, now 
put to open shame; but it is more sad to see briber and 
defaulter received in society like honest men. 

In the olden time, in all intelligent and well-regulated 
communities, every one worked, and work was respectable ; 
idleness was disgraceful. All this has changed. The idle 
and profligate plant themselves on conspicuous corners 
and call themselves society, while all useful and really 
respectable men and women who work are said by them 
to be not in society. The absence alike of poverty and 



VAGARIES OF SOCIETY 429 

wealth during the first half of the century, all uniting 
work with respectability, brought all together on a plane 
of equality, while later, as wealth and idleness increased, 
only the refuse and the worthless could properly call them- 
selves in society. 

Denver has a refined and intelligent people; it is more 
like Boston in this respect than any western city. Yet 
among those in Denver who label themselves high society 
are some of the vilest corruptionists the country can pro- 
duce, men who sell the souls of children for money, and 
openly vilify in vulgar and blasphemous terms the judge 
on his bench for attempting their rescue. 

Of great men and great women there must necessarily 
be comparatively few in the world, for greatness implies 
distinction. If all were rich and great alike there would 
be no superiority. Money in the hands of one person is 
of no value if it will not buy the services of another. 

Greatness in the sense of distinction is an overwhelm- 
ing craving of the human heart. The desire for power 
is the mainspring of all human activities, the primary 
principle of all human progress. Nor is it humanity alone 
that covets distinction. Animals and plants fight for the 
supremacy, the fittest surviving. 

Places as well as peoples set up various measurements. 
To do nothing and do it well, is the aim of the English- 
man; to do evil undetected pleases the Frenchman, while 
the American above all things likes best to make money, 
honestly if practicable. In Turkey the ideal Sultan is he 
who secures repose, dignified repose. 

In Europe where caste is still strongly marked, not 
so much by money and title as by blood and occupation, 
the really best society, the class that gives the most and 
does the best is that part of the nobility and gentry who 
follow some useful occupation, as statesmanship, finance, 
or even high commerce and manufacturing, as against an 
idle and dissipated aristocracy. 



430 RETROSPECTION 

The city languishes unless replenished from the country, 
and idle society falls into decay unless vivified by those 
who work. 

There is a class better than high society, which is the 
Best Society. The best society is distinguished from high 
society in that its personnel is composed for the most 
part of men who work and are honest. Some of them 
are even disposed to be truthful. 

As to the more sensible and refined realms of social 
intercourse where mind meets mind to the improvement 
of all, there is little of it left. Men meet to eat and drink 
and smoke, women to dance and laugh and scandalize. 
This is so-called high society, the more nonsensical and 
extravagant it is the higher it ranks. It is exceeded 
in imbecility by only one class, and that is of those 
who regard it, envy it, and would like to be in it but 
cannot. 

There are men in England who make good society; 
there are few of that stamp in America, the older ones 
talking stocks and the younger ones sport. 

The commercial value of civic integrity is a quality 
always to be reckoned with, the advocacy of immunity 
for high crime being measured by the morality or cupidity 
of the moneyed men. 

"What constitutes good society, the best society ? I will 
tell you. In the early gold-digging days San Francisco's 
good society was better than the best, better than any 
since seen there, because of its patriotism, single-minded- 
ness, and charity. The men were honest and the women 
pure of heart. Vice flaunted its colors in the streets, 
and crime plied its trade in the dark, but the saviors of 
the city went their way untainted. 

There was want and suffering abroad, and these people, 
at first strangers, soon became friends, drawn together by 
bonds of sympathy and respect. The women formed 
charitable associations and the men built hospitals and 
asylums. Their names, when the honor roll of California 



VAGARIES OF SOCIETY 431 

is called, should come first, — Mrs. Ira P. Rankin, Mrs. 
Alfred De Witt, Mrs. C. V. Gillespie, Mrs. William Lef- 
fingwell, Mrs. D. L. Ross, Mrs. 0. C. Wheeler, Mrs. F. W. 
Macondray, Mrs. Henry Haight, and among the men, 
John W. Geary, Hall McAllister, H. W. Halleck, William 
T. Coleman, Charles Gilman, Stephen Franklin. 

These and such as these are always good society, be the 
time and place whatever it may. 

Marshall Field, a noble specimen of American man- 
hood, from a poor youth — seeking work in the wet streets 
of murky Chicago, rises by his own inherent force of 
character into a loftier environment, makes a hundred 
millions, and dies of a bruised heart from the untimely 
death of a worthy son, who leaves a boy sole heir to all. 
What chance has he to accomplish anything worth liv- 
ing for, this guarded babe, who is switched off to Europe 
by a dozen relatives with a score of servants, the better 
to spend there the grandfather's earnings? 

In the best society are still left some shreds of patri- 
otism. Among the young men are some who will go out 
and work for pure politics, not wanting office. Among 
the elders are some that are rich and influential who dis- 
courage immorality and will not indulge in bribery. 

The best society in America is composed chiefly of 
Americans with American ideals. Aliens may now and 
then come in from the effete civilizations of Europe and 
become members of the best society, but it cannot be ex- 
pected that they should at once fall in love with a country 
not their own, or entertain any great degree of loyalty 
and respect for institutions in the making of which they 
had taken no part. 

The young men of the best society are ashamed of 
idleness and inefficiency; they attend dinner parties and 
dances but do not make a practice of spending the night 
in revelry and the day in bed. The young women of this 
class likewise aspire to a life of usefulness, remembering 
that their grandmothers worked, and that they them- 



432 RETROSPECTION 

selves are profiting by it, while the high society girls 
who know nothing and can do nothing, never had a 
grandmother. 

It is becoming somewhat common among the young 
men even of high society to affect a life of usefulness, to 
copy enough from the code of the best society as to adopt 
some of its virtues, even to the learning of the principles 
and practice of business methods and of setting their 
hands thereto. Some go so far as to apply to habits of 
dissipation the term damphoolishness. Herein may we 
build up some hope for the future. And while we are 
about it we may as well hope a little for the gay fossils 
and withered dowagers as well as for the prurient youths 
of lascivious ballrooms. 

A clique may draw around itself a circle within which 
better people than any it contains are excluded for no 
apparent reason than that they want to enter, and they 
may want to enter for no other reason than that they are 
excluded. 

During the latter part of the century society has as- 
sumed its most complex form. Following the civil war 
came reconstruction, expansion, and a development which 
multiplied wealth. We w r ere admittedly a great nation, 
the wealthiest and strongest in the world, all of which 
were of little avail could not a proper display of it be 
made. Men may build homes, women may carry a paltry 
half million upon their backs, if not left too bare, while 
government may send a bunch of war ships round the 
world, all for vain show, one as another. 

Virtue becoming too tame, vice is adopted for a change. 
"Punishments established for the common people do not 
apply to us, ' ' says high society ; ' ' our immoralities, our 
dishonesties are swallowed up in our superiority. ' ' 

This, then, is the whole matter. In every city, in 
every large town of America and Europe society separates 
itself into cliques or classes, each class having or pre- 
tending to have some distinctive merit or demerit not 



VAGARIES OF SOCIETY 433 

possessed by any one of the others. Conspicuous among 
them is the coterie composed of the higher or louder pre- 
tentions, sometimes called the smart set, which has wealth 
and loves pleasure. It is the class to which gravitate per- 
sons of leisure ambitious of cheap distinction. Men may 
or may not possess intelligence or culture, but they are 
expected to be to some extent in vogue. Morals are a 
secondary consideration; even great criminals may pass, 
if otherwise strong enough and of good form. This is 
high society; to be in or out of it, they will tell you, is 
to be in or not of society. Next is a class of substantial 
people of less pretentions, who regard qualities of mind 
and heart, who hold to good morals and integrity, despis- 
ing the frivolities they are supposed to be coveting. 

To join the circle of the elect one must adopt their 
vices and submit to their vulgarities. To continue therein 
too often one is led into excesses, resulting in debauchery 
and crime. 

The daughter of the clergyman has charge of a child; 
if the child is old enough to have lessons she is a governess 
and a lady, if not, she is a nurse and no lady. She may 
stitch or paint for pleasure but not for profit; she may 
play cards for money, but not for money with which to 
procure necessities. A lady who works for a living, rather 
than beg or steal, is ostracized. Break all the command- 
ments, so that you are not found out, but do not break con- 
ventionalities. 

Having exhausted for something sensational the values 
of common-sense and decency, the realms beyond are en- 
tered and all sorts of bizarre performances are invented, 
some of which may be spoken of aloud, as a wedding in a 
balloon, a dinner on horseback, a poverty social. And all 
the while the brainless flutterers in fine raiment seem to 
imagine themselves the attraction when it is only the fine 
raiment or the absence of it. 

Nowhere can we find a more complex society than in 
the United States, and nowhere is to be found better so- 



434 RETROSPECTION 

ciety than our best. It is natural, intellectual, healthy, 
and free from guile. It is improving and progressive, 
one cannot be of it, or long in it, and remain inert. 

High society sets up for itself an oligarchy; low so- 
ciety drifts into democracy; the true republic of culture 
and refinement lies between extremes. 

Any woman, young or old, of modern proclivities, and 
who carries her reputation with ordinary circumspection, 
who mingles properly with kindred spirits, may set herself 
up as high society, still striving for something higher as 
others strive to get so high. 

All men are created free and equal — except snobs, and 
they are equalled only by other snobs. 

All are born free and equal, but they are not so five 
minutes afterward. All are born free and equal; all die 
free and equal ; but in life all is unequal, and therein is 
the zest of it. A world of all equalities were a dead 
world, and therein were the doom of socialism. A world 
without controversy were stagnation, more unbearable 
than human butcheries. 

Fashion makes freaks of us all, and if we do not follow 
the fashion we are greater freaks than ever. 

The vagaries of fashion embody all the idiocies of 
humanity. There is no crime one will not commit, no 
hideousness one will not undergo, no suffering one will 
not endure rather than not be in the fashion. 

Freak fashions are adopted in order to attract the eye 
of others, and the more pronounced the freak the more 
eyes are attracted. 

Probably the greatest crime of high society is to make 
idleness appear the better part, or if not striving to make 
converts to idleness, at least so living as to make idleness 
compulsory. No young woman can dance and laugh her 
life through, and become a fit wife for any self-respecting 
man, rich or poor. 

England's aristocracy ceased working with its hands 
some centuries ago; America's aristocracy worked on and 



VAGARIES OF SOCIETY 435 

openly until after the civil war, when it found the head 
the more profitable member. Others are still working 
with their hands who are yet to appear. 

Service is pronounced degrading. The servant was not 
long since a slave. A servant dislikes to wait upon a servant. 

As for the senseless practice of tipping, it is simply an- 
other phase of bribery and human abasement. It is im- 
moral and servile, a species of blackmail originating in 
vanity and kept alive by cowardice. It is a sort of caddish- 
ness utterly unworthy of any self-respecting people. 

There are grades of servile labor. In society a woman 
must be as worthless as possible; if she does any thing 
useful outside of her domestic duties she loses caste; if 
she takes pay for her work she is ostracized. 

Wealthy boys have been known to work, to improve 
their minds and increase their usefulness; he who is not 
prepared to do this, better sell all that he hath and gamble 
away the money. 

Let not the reader regard this Retrospection as a 
sombre strain of pessimism, or as groans from the pit of 
Acheron. The writer is of hopeful temperament. He 
sees more glory in the future for his country than may be 
found in the Apocalypse. He claims, in treating of the 
past and present, the moderate ability of recognizing the 
elements of life and the elements of death, and of know- 
ing bad men when he sees them, whether in the spheres 
of capital or labor, whether bankers, bribers, or bulldozers. 

Of good society, of the best in the world, pure and 
intelligent women and honest and able men, there is in 
these United States a thousand times more than of that 
corruption called high society. And because this corrup- 
tion affords few pleasing thoughts to the healthy mind is 
no reason for not denouncing it. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

WASTE IN EDUCATION 

SINCE in the economics of nature it is decreed that 
every person born into the world shall draw his fill 
from the sources of knowledge, each for himself, and by 
slow degrees as he is able to retain the immortal truths, 
it is clearly to be seen that if any considerable progress 
is to be expected in the short lifetime allowed, continual 
assistance is necessary all along the line from those who 
go before to those who come after. 

Speaking after the manner of men it is wasteful on 
the part of nature, or would so seem were it not true that 
it is the nature of nature to be wasteful, forever making 
oceans of little fish to feed the big fish which are good 
for nothing when fed, not to mention the begemmed cav- 
erns and the forests of unseen blushing flowers, and were 
it not true that with nature time and eternity are one; 
it seems a waste, I say that we should not be able to 
inherit and utilize the learning of our forebears, as we 
inherit farms and merchandise, but that the past should 
be lost to the future save only the little that is passed on 
from one generation to another, or wrapped in books and 
preserved in the world's storehouses of human experiences. 
What is waste in education? What is waste of any 
sort? We are told that no atom of substance or strand 
of force ever drops out of the universe; wherefore there 
is no waste. Sport is not waste; is vice? Surely time, 
which is neither substance nor force, and which with 
mortals is limited, may be wasted, and he who eats to 
gluttony or drinks to drunkenness wastes his strength, as 
he who sells his honor wastes his manhood. 

436 



WASTE IN EDUCATION 437 

We should not regard the time and money spent in 
experimental, if laudable and sensible effort as wasted. 
Waste in education, I should say, is where the education, 
or the effort, is more harmful than beneficial, and that 
such conditions sometimes exist under the present loose 
and lumbering systems it is not difficult to see. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident that knowledge 
gives the power to mind over matter; that intellectual de- 
velopment is civilization; that education is the backbone 
of the Republic, that schools are the bulwark of the na- 
tion, and the rest. 

Self-evident also are the facts to those who will see 
them that education is worth all it costs, though it costs 
many times more than it would under better systems; 
that there is more education of some kinds than is good 
for the people, and that so many free schools and free 
universities are not conducive to the highest well-being 
of society. Mayhap, also, the wise ones of the not too 
distant future will look back and wonder how the people 
of the United States should not see that half of their free 
higher education is worse than thrown away. 

All the same education is imperative, though what one 
learns in the school is the least necessary of the knowl- 
edge required for a successful career through life. Aca- 
demic facts alone are a small part of education. 

Education with us is an obsession. Know thyself; en- 
large and strengthen your mental powers ; there is no other 
way of approach to the higher American ideals. 

What is the purpose of education? Is it to make men 
better or only brighter? What is the purpose of religion? 
Is it to make men moral or only superstitious? How are 
these two social forces at present working in the United 
States of America? Are people becoming better or only 
abler and more subtle? Are they becoming more moral 
or only hugging the more desperately to ancient super- 
stitions ? 

The clergyman tells us that the salvation of the state 
15 



438 RETROSPECTION 

rests upon the church. The educator declares that the 
reformation of the criminal lies in education. Christian- 
ity, recognized as the highest and purest form of religion, 
has been in operation for nearly two thousand years. It 
has brought to grief many nations; those which it has 
saved, whatever that may mean, can be discerned only 
by the eyes of faith. As for education, it is nowhere more 
highly honored, and has nowhere made greater progress 
than in the United States, where crime in high places has 
kept not only abreast but often well in advance of it. 

Why not apply business methods to education as well 
as to labor problems or to government? It is only calling 
to our aid the exercise of common-sense. 

Education to be worth anything must be practical 
rather than formal. A hundred years ago to learn a little 
Latin was education; with it one might go forth into the 
world an educated gentleman ; nor can we say that a 
knowledge of horse-shoeing would have served him better 
when the Latin and not the horse-shoeing was the hall- 
mark of intellectual intercourse. 

So may our present system appear to others a hundred 
years hence. 

Three-fourths of those who are attending high school 
or sauntering through a free university should be at work 
on the farm or in a factory. Agriculture as well as manu- 
factures suffers from the inefficiency and high cost of labor. 
The tendency of the farmer's sons and daughters is to 
abandon parents and the homestead as soon as they be- 
come of much use to them, and take up with town life 
where the opportunities for both good and evil are greater 
than in the country. 

It were better for the young if less were done for them 
and they were required to do more for themselves. 

Why should the state give a university education free 
when the result is only injury both to the state and to the 
individual? The examiner cannot tell how the applicant 
will turn out, but he can make up his mind to some 



WASTE IN EDUCATION 439 

things and give orders accordingly. One cannot tell a 
Ruef at the beginning, else in his case not only the cost 
of the education might have been saved, but the franchises 
he stole, the cost of trial and imprisonment, — the cost to 
the public of this one little rascal alone amounts at least 
to half a million dollars. 

On every side we see thousands of young men whose 
lives have been spoiled by college life, not necessarily by 
idleness or dissipation, but by the erroneous conception 
of ideals and the misdirected efforts for the attainment of 
fancied benefits. The evil comes not so much from bad 
habits contracted at college as from lack of good and use- 
ful habits which might elsewhere have been formed under 
other and more favorable conditions. 

To the youth whose financial future is secured to him, 
who has a place awaiting him in his father's factory or 
office, and to whom business is to be a pastime rather than 
food-provider, the higher education is not harmful, as the 
time and labor spent upon it may be well afforded; but 
let him shun the university who has his own way to make 
in the world unless he is sure of abilities far above the 
average. Otherwise he lays out for himself an impecuni- 
ous life of unrewarded effort, of no value to himself or 
to any one else. 

And would not the university do well instead of spend- 
ing its resources teaching idiots at home and heathen 
abroad, to use some discrimination as to whom and what 
quality it is worth while to receive, and not spoil so many 
good farm hands and mechanics. 

Many and great evils, many a sad failure in life 
might be avoided were every young man who presented 
himself as a candidate for a four years' course of instruc- 
tion at the expense of the state made to pass through a 
thorough examination by one worldly wise of clear dis- 
cernment and practical good sense, as to his capabilities 
and as to why he was there, what he had left behind, and 
what he aimed to accomplish. 



440 RETROSPECTION 

If the examiner did his duty, three-fourths of those 
who applied would be sent away with kind words of ad- 
vice, which if followed would lead the aspirant for easy 
fame into happier and more successful ways than trailing 
through objectless courses of irrelevant studies, finally to 
be pitched out into the world at the tail of the machine, 
of far less value to himself or others than when he began. 

Then those that remained should be charged a moderate 
tuition, lest they learned to value lightly what had cost 
them nothing. In a word, let rudimentary education be 
ample and free, and leave the higher realms of effort to 
those who show some promise of being able to cope with 
higher things and to meet the new difficulties which there 
present themselves with some promise of success. Thus 
much more good will be accomplished, and some of the 
thousands of disa ters and failures following a college 
course may be escaped. 

More serious than all else as the result of over-educa- 
tion is the depopulation of the rural districts and over- 
crowding of the cities. About half the population of the 
United States is urban, one-tenth of the ninety millions 
occupying three cities, New York, Philadelphia and Chi- 
cago. Producers are needed in our country rather than 
professors, — more work and less talk. 

Farming is an independent and honorable occupation. 
Not one-half of our available lands is utilized. There 
are very few good reliable farm hands to be found among 
the farmers, in some quarters none at all. Boys and girls 
by scraping together enough to eat manage to lounge 
through a course of study, at the end of which they call 
themselves educated, take a cheap room for an office, and 
distress themselves and others for the rest of their lives. 
Some call this sort of thing laudable ambition. 

As to the young women who choose a riotous life of 
innocent enjoyment to the quieter duties of domesticity, 
they are already largely spoiled by indulgent parents be- 
fore leaving home. The parlor and the piano, young men 



WASTE IN EDUCATION 441 

and automobiles, these are their province. Leaving to 
their mother the kitchen work and their father at the 
plow, they themselves knowing little and caring less about 
how to cook or sew or do anything useful, they are going 
in for the higher education, they say, the esthetic life, as 
they call a smatter of foreign languages, some cheap phi- 
osophy, and a little poor play-acting and society manners, 
just enough to make them ashamed of their parents, who 
henceforth and forever are to continue the work that is to 
support the useless daughter in idleness. 

And the town boy, after his college days are over, when 
urged to choose an occupation and go to work by a parent 
who believes in work for work's sake, where there is no 
other incentive, who sees in work the great civilizer and 
panacea, and the only one, my young gentleman from 
Harvard says, ' ' I will play porter and errand boy at thirty 
dollars a month if you want me to, but I would rather live 
on my moderate allowance and enjoy life as I go along if 
you don't mind. ,, 

Needless to say, the parent subsides, seeing nothing in 
the situation of that spirit of success which impels the 
ambitious boy to pick up pins on the side-walk, polish up 
the handle of the big front door, and marry the banker's 
daughter. 

In times past when to know Latin and Greek was an 
education, it was still worse, as education denoted the 
gentleman, and the gentleman ipso facto was excluded 
from any useful occupation. It took even educators a 
long time to learn that there is no knowledge wrapped up 
in a language, living or dead. It is beginning to be pretty 
well understood, further, that there is but little knowledge 
in a college education ; that boys are sent to the university 
to learn how to learn, and to make pleasant or profitable 
acquaintances, which is all very well for those who can 
afford it. 

Education, proper, begins, if it begins at all, after 
leaving the university. As a rule it does not begin at all. 



442 RETROSPECTION 

The young person, male or female, has graduated, can 
produce a certificate to that effect, which might mean 
something as affecting competency to teach reading writ- 
ing and arithmetic in a primary school, but further than 
that has no significance whatever. The Latin learned 
when freshman is gone before he is sophomore, and of all 
his studies from books little knowledge of them remains 
after graduation for a profession. 

When ready to practice, the young man who has pre- 
pared himself to the best of his ability and with no small 
labor finds the field occupied and overflowing. In a none 
too large city are a thousand doctors and two thousand 
lawyers, one-half of whom by hook or by crook just man- 
age to live — and it would not matter greatly should they 
not manage to live; one-quarter of them by working ten 
or twelve hours a day secure a return equal to the wage 
of a mechanic who works eight hours a day with a half 
day off for rest and recreation every week; ten per cent, 
of the whole may make a good living, and five per cent, 
achieve distinction and a fortune by the time they are too 
old to enjoy them. 

Yes, there is always room at the top, but it is too often 
wind rather than dead weight that carries one there. 

Better a strong mind with no education than a weak 
one overburdened with learning. Among America's great 
men two of the greatest, Abraham Lincoln and Benito 
Juarez, had scarcely any school education at all. 

It is safe to say that in every other graduate from a 
university is a young man spoiled for a farmer, a me- 
chanic, or a merchant. 

Why spoiled? Is not acquired knowledge good for 
any one in any walk of life ? 

The acquisition of knowledge is always beneficial and 
praiseworthy, whether drawn from a college or a saw- 
mill. There are the habits acquired, the trend of mind 
and body given during this formative period, the most 
important of the boy's life, which prevent that hearty 



WASTE IN EDUCATION 443 

application to labor or business which alone brings suc- 
cess. No business man will employ a youth because of a 
college education, though he may do so in spite of it. 

To become proficient in business the boy must begin 
early, say at the age of twelve or fifteen years; he must 
become imbued with his environment until every detail 
is familiar, and the whole routine is as a second nature. 
A little learning there is better than too much. As Father 
Tom said to the pope, "You put in the rum, and you put 
in the sugar, and every drop of water after that spoils 
the punch/ ' 

What a commentary on the higher education is this, 
that scarcely one who has achieved distinction in commerce, 
industry, or finance enjoyed a university education, and 
that in regard to our most noted criminals, giants of finance 
and industry, grafters, bribers, government swindlers, and 
purchasers of place, a due proportion of them are college 
graduates ! 

Is it not the educated and wealthy rather than the 
illiterate and poor that bring nations to degradation and 
ruin? France educated Napoleon; England left Shake- 
speare to educate himself. 

President Eliot, the most broad-minded and liberal 
of all America's great educators, and yet practical and 
thorough withal, allowed his students the widest latitude 
in the selection of courses and the time to be spent on 
them, whether three years or four. He was among the 
first of New Englanders to abolish compulsory chapel and 
the superstition of dead languages. He tolerated the- 
ological study, even permitting Professor James to ven- 
tilate his spiritualistic fantasies, which he called psycho- 
logical philosophy. He furthermore favored on the part 
of students the early selection of a career, if any such 
they intended to follow, so that college work might prove 
of some practical use afterward. 

Few of our foremost educators, as well as thinking 
men of business, will now deny that education in a wrong 



444 RETROSPECTION 

direction is worse than none. What may be considered a 
wrong direction depends upon conditions, upon the youth's 
necessities and upon one's idea of the value and use of 
time and money, whether it is not better to let the former 
drift and scatter the latter in educational extravagance than 
in the extravaganzas of society and sportive life; whether 
it is better to waste wealth or hoard it, or save it for future 
potentialities. 

Waste makes want, says the copy book. But does it? 
Young men are growing wealth-wise in these latter days 
under the tuition of graft and greed on the part of their 
elders. It is no longer the fashion among the more decent 
of the young men to assume an air of smartness and squan- 
der money for the fun of it, as was in vogue in the time 
of their fathers. They do not make asses of themselves 
in that way. Young Astorbilt now scowls and growls 
when cheated out of a quarter, very like poorer mortals. 

Hence it is neither necessary nor good form either to 
waste or hoard, particularly to the extent somewhat com- 
mon in America. Here less waste would signify less work, 
less wealth-making work, leaving more time for the intel- 
lectual and the esthetic. We are well within the mark 
when we say that more than half of all our national wealth 
has been wasted, that which comes from natural resources 
as well as returns from taxation. 

First, there are battle-ships and barracks, navy and 
standing army. Why arm and place a chip on the shoul- 
der of the Panama canal when all the nations would surely 
agree to leave it in peace? In the midst of the ever- 
wrangling nations of Europe, Switzerland gets along very 
well without army or navy. I do not say that the United 
States needs neither, but surely something better might be 
done with the people's money than to rig up a hundred 
million dollar fleet and go prancing round the world like a 
big Indian in his war paint hunting for a fight. 

Indeed, the attitude of the great afraid, the great na- 
tions of civilization, is much the same as was that of the 



WASTE IN EDUCATION 445 

savages of America, each tribe living in perpetual fear 
of an attack by its neighbor, and holding itself in readiness 
accordingly. 

Then the great army of law-makers and office holders 
waste three-fourths of their time in work to retain office 
or for reelection. How much of the people 's time and money 
did Mr. Taft spend in his disgraceful squabble for reelec- 
tion, a matter affecting only his private interests and per- 
sonal spite? The horde of paupers on the pension 
list, how many of them or their fathers or cousins have 
ever served or done aught but sponge off the Republic? 
A most senseless waste is printing and loading the mails 
with thousands of tons of worthless trash, much of it never 
looked at by those to whom it is sent. Criminals; in dis- 
posing of them England accomplishes more in half the 
time and at less than one-quarter of the cost. But Eng- 
land's folly is taking other directions, as in competitive 
warship-building, and in the support of royalty and an 
idle aristocracy. So each to his taste; let us all scatter 
our follies as we will. Death is the chief factor of progress 
in the re-sowing of wealth. 

In education we good Americans have all in common one 
good fetish, which we worship with a constancy superior to 
our love of graft, superior to our greed for gold, for office, 
for any kind of power which will best display the animal- 
ism still left in us, whether or not it makes us better or 
wiser, we worship all the same. We tax the people to 
graduate a Ruef, and send him forth to teach. He is a 
genius and we are proud of him, the little curly head; 
this it is to have institutions of learning on every street 
corner. See the new tricks that he hath up his sleeve; 
behold how men, yea, great corporations, pour forth money 
to see them, and how the young men admire and envy. 
But gratitude proves too strong for our idol, and he must 
needs go to San Quentin and work awhile for the state 
which has done so much for him. 

He leaves us, however, this reflection, that for one 



446 RETROSPECTION 

who goes from our universities to the state prison there 
are a thousand who do not. That is what education does 
for them. Just enough but not too much. Ruef was over- 
educated. 

All men are abnormal in one way or another, and all 
women, though an all-round sensible woman, if not too 
much the slave of convention, is less abnormal than most 
men. Deflection appears most in those whose educa- 
tion and lives have been along a single line, and the 
ablest men along their respective lines are the greatest 
abnormalities. 

The strength and concentration required to achieve dis- 
tinction and hold the mind straight in a beaten path tends 
to warp and bias of mind outside of that path. We have 
only to consider the parson, to compare the pedagogue 
and professor, the merchant and banker, while the men 
of law and of medicine are notably faulty in their opin- 
ions, whether in or out of their profession. 

Of all our presidents probably the least abnormal was 
Lincoln and the most so was Taft. The former never 
worried a university, while the latter was early sterilized 
to common-sense by smiling conventions and the erudition 
of judicial legerdemain. Nor was it genius that made 
Lincoln one of the best men that ever lived, but honesty, 
integrity, and goodness of heart under the most trying 
circumstances. 

Graduates at the universities are finished off as at a 
factory, in patterns, each class according to its kind, in 
mind and body, in dress and deportment, the preacher 
after his kind, the professor after his kind, the lawyer, 
the doctor, and the nondescript, each after his kind. 

In the early stages of political science the taxation of 
property for the purposes of public education was justified 
on the ground of safe-guarding the well-being of the 
community; the educated boy was less likely to grow 
up a criminal and become a charge upon the state than 



WASTE IN EDUCATION 447 

the non-educated boy. The time has long since past when 
any sucli excuse was necessary. 

To what lengths the educational fetish will carry the 
American people, or rather the aliens who control the 
American people, it is difficult to say. Substantial citi- 
zens supply the means, the unsubstantial ones supply the 
children. 

So long as the shiftless voter can get something for 
nothing, he will take all he can get. Not content with the 
ordinary branches of education, all that are necessary or 
beneficial, all that it is right or proper for the people to 
pay for, not content with house, books, clothing, food, 
doctor, and wet-nurse, all for nothing, they now aspire 
to foreign languages, music and dancing, and will soon 
expect pound-cake, champagne, and an automobile. And 
because of the impecunious voters and the fetish, no one 
dare say a word, so that the altruistic obsession is likely 
to run its course. 

Where there is so much useless education scattered 
about may not I in this connection speak a word, the im- 
portance of which involves no principle of syntax or 
psychology, involves nothing more than a discordant sound 
upon the ear? It is simply to call the attention of Cali- 
fornia educators to the misuse and wrong pronunciation 
of the Spanish names of familiar places and objects around 
us, of the true significance of which the rising generation is 
growing up in lamentable ignorance. 

I refer to such phrases as Sierra Nevada mountains, 
the Sierras, Faralone islands, the El Cajon valley, and 
many others. 

Sierra means saw, the upturned teeth of which may 
indicate a chain of mountain peaks, and so the word has 
come to signify a range of mountains, of which there are 
many in Spanish countries, as Sierra Madre, Sierra de 
Estrella, Sierra de Toledo. As there is but one Sierra in 



448 RETROSPECTION 

California, the Sierra Nevada, or Snowy Range, it is 
proper, speaking generally, to say the Sierra, but sierras, 
or mountains, is meaningless, as there are no other moun- 
tain ranges in California bearing the name of Sierra aside 
from the Sierra Nevada. 

Faralones is a common and not a proper name, signify- 
ing islands in the form of peaked rocks rising abruptly 
from the water. As there is but one such group near San 
Francisco to which the word is applied, it is well to say the 
Faralones, but not the Faralone islands. So the Sierra 
Nevada mountains can be translated only as the Snowy 
Mountains mountains. 

Cajon means box; figuratively, a valley, so in saying 
the El Cajon valley, a very common expression, one says 
the The Valley Valley. 

Mispronunciation is still more extended. Doubtless, 
the Panama canal is as great an achievement with the 
first syllable accented as with the last, but if one cares 
to know how the natives spoke the word it was with the 
last syllable accented, panamd, a fishing station. So with 
Portola, the governor himself spoke and wrote his name 
with the accent on the last syllable, an exception to the 
rule, as Cortes and Bogota are exceptions. 

Pinole is properly in three syllables, pi-no-le. 

Americans were soon laughed out of saying San Josy, 
San Jo-a-quin; the other instances above mentioned are 
just as bad. 

In the common pronunciation of the word Panama 
there is a double error, as without the accent, following 
the rule it would be Pan-am-a. So with Bogota, which 
would be Bo-go-ta, and Cor-cZo-va instead of Cordova, and 
other like instances, sounds to native ears not recognizable. 
As the natives pronounced the word Panama with the last 
a accented, the Spaniards followed them in so pro- 
nouncing it. In Spanish books and manuscripts the word 
is never without the accent. And the same with regard to 
Portola, Bogota, Barbara and many others. If Portola 



WASTE IN EDUCATION 449 

and Bogota why not San Josy and BarZmra? So essen- 
tial is this accent in the orthography and orthoepy of 
Spanish words, those in common use with us and others, 
that the changing of it from one letter to another some- 
times changes the meaning of the word, as Cortes, a man's 
name ; cortes, a legislative body. Paso Robels is commonly 
heard for Paso Ro-bles. 

It is perhaps asking too much of the smart people of 
so flourishing a city as Los Angeles to say Los An-hay-les, 
and how many graduates of Stanford say Paylo Alto for 
Pah-lo Ahl-to, and Juni-per-ro for Hu-nip-e-ro Sera. 

Until it was shown that the Germans had thrown in a 
superfluous h into his name as Vitus Bering himself 
wrote it, we saw everywhere the word Behring as applied 
to the venturesome discoverer. 

It is not easy to understand how young people are to 
be built up in honesty and rectitude by holding before 
them as proper examples for their imitation such men 
as the founders of the Chicago or of the Stanford university. 

Wealth alone cannot make a university. Crime per- 
chance creeps in unobserved and hides itself in sacred 
places, in the institution whose president and professors 
become apologists for the crooked ways of the founder, in 
the church whose pulpit is silenced by the support of high 
bribers and grafters. 

Tainted money; that is to say money stolen from the 
people and now in part returned because the thief has 
more than he wants, or dies childless, with no loss to the 
commonwealth in consequence. 

A poor return for all their labor to see this wealth for 
which they gave their soul pass into the hands of aliens. 

Those who derive benefit from the use of this money 
should be taught to regard the man who gave it at his true 
worth, not as a good and praiseworthy person, however 
lauded by hired clergymen and college officials. 

James Lick made large bequests, yet Lick's money 



450 RETROSPECTION 

was not tainted, only sterilized. There was nothing 
tainted about Lick, except his soul. 

All the money that Carnegie can pile on Rockefeller's, 
hallowed by acts of congress and the prayers of baptist 
priests, cannot build a Harvard or a Yale, or plant a 
Cornell in Washington. "The iron is enough for me," 
says Carnegie, "for with it I can put me up a thousand 
everlasting libraries without ever buying a book, with 
added institutes of many kinds, all Carnegie, all so many 
monuments to my superior foresight, a thousand tomb- 
Btones scattered the world over, all bought by me with 
my iron." Yet it is a good Carnegie as the world goes, 
who in the name of books provides places for books, which 
is better than buying foreign titles for adopted daughters. 
So with time Scotch cunning crystallizes into solid learn- 
ing to stand forever as Carnegie's without having cost him 
a penny. 

From the tainted money and tainted minds of the 
founders, common-place instruction and the low standard 
of university life, the best results could scarcely be 
expected. 

The founders of Palo Alto, husband and wife, retained 
sole control during their joint lives, which proved long 
enough sufficiently to etherealize Central Pacific railway 
morals to fit the occasion. 

Tainted money cannot buy the heredity and environ- 
ment that developed the personality of Eli Yale and John 
Harvard. Rockefeller may squeeze and give, Stanford 
may shuffle and give, but the atmosphere of a malodorous 
personality hovers forever about the place. 

When a rich man visits a school the boys envy him 
and resolve to become like him. If Mr. Rockefeller is the 
visitor he is not introduced as the great American appro- 
priator, but the boys soon find it out for themselves. 

It is a poor way to teach the young integrity, to im- 
plant in the youthful mind the principles of honor and 
equity, a poor way to begin an education which should 



WASTE IN EDUCATION 451 

lead upward to the higher moral and intellectual life with 
such words as these: "My son, behold these stately struc- 
tures, built by one whose only son died, leaving him with- 
out a natural heir ; so having no further use for the money 
on earth, and unable to take it with him, he bestows it for 
the benefit of the young and innocent, to teach them the 
way of truth and righteousness, and to cause the world to 
forget that the money was stolen. 

1 ' I hope you will never steal, my son ; it is well to get 
rich, but not to defraud, — your father.' ' 

"See that great telescope and the apparatus around it, 
contributed by a very rich man, whose superior ability and 
methods made many poor, made men bankrupt, and turned 
out women and children to starve. Get rich, my son, and 
teach a Sunday-school, but do not starve little children 
after you have got all their father 's money. ' ' 

"Observe that library building with the maker's name 
on it. He calls the building his library. He never buys 
books but he gets his name on a great many buildings. 
Now be a good boy and don't try to get rich and cheat 
before you are grown up, or if you do, and you should 
build a fine library building with your name on it, I hope 
you will put some books in it as well." 

Money gives power, but the power given by money 
fraudulently obtained can never be a power for good. 

The end sanctifieth the means, saith the preacher; but 
there are preachers who will not take their pay for preach- 
ing in ill-gotten gains, and there are preachers who will 
not praise the iniquitous deeds of iniquitous men for 
money wrongfully obtained ; there are some good men who 
are preachers. 

"If you study for the ministry, my son, you will be 
instructed to be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove. 
If you cannot be both, and have to leave out one, it may 
be as well to omit the dove part. And should you take occa- 
sion to say sometimes that our city, like Sodom, was de- 
stroyed for its sins it is not necessary to mention the names 



452 RETROSPECTION 

of the particular sinners of your congregation, or call to 
mind the fact that some eighty -six churches were burned." 

Like a ban of excommunication tainted money for the 
college taints every one who enters it, taints the president 
and professors, taints the students and their studies. 
Neither marble mausoleums nor richly appointed house of 
prayer, or other paraphernalia of immortality can make 
sweet the air to those who work for that which good men 
scorn and receive their pay in orphan's cries and widow's 
tears. 

Yet among those who have come forth from Stanford, 
I am glad to say, have been many good men, professors 
and students, who have heartily and intelligently espoused 
the cause of honest government, of political cleanliness and 
civic purity, and have done good service in the purification 
of politics. 

Most encouraging of all, the damnable doctrines of the 
reactionaries of corporate capital and Big Business, the 
doctrine of immunity for high criminality and punish- 
ment for the poor, the doctrine that the acquisition of 
wealth justifies the means, the methods of the octopus and 
the monuments of the founder of their college find little 
favor with the healthy young Calif ornians who attend this 
predatory institution of learning, as nearly all the stu- 
dents and most of the professors, in all the important 
political issues of the day are found active on the side 
of honesty and good government. 

An able professor of Stanford university, Doctor Burt 
Estes Howard, thus speaks of the application of ill-gotten 
wealth to the up-bringing of young men, words none the 
less noble because of the fact that the worthy professor 
draws his pay from the lootings of Leland Stanford, the 
evil' effects of which rest upon the shoulders of every 
citizen of this state, and of other states, to this day. 

Says the professor: "The principal criticism of the 



WASTE IN EDUCATION 453 

generosity to institutions of men whose great fortunes 
have been obtained by doubtful methods and through sus- 
picious sources is not alone that their money comes coupled 
with their own personal history, not that the hope of their 
favor has an undesirable influence on certain forms of 
teaching and on the public utterance of college officials, 
but that these gifts of brick and mortar and money have a 
tendency to make the ideal endowment seem less valuable 
and important. We cannot afford to have the traditions 
of our colleges become largely the traditions of certain 
suspiciously rich men who made money and built build- 
ings. It seems like the mere hyperbole of a jealous and 
disappointed spirit to affirm that the corrupt practices 
of the unjustly rich are less harmful than their benevo- 
lences, but the statement will bear argument and furnish 
much reason for belief in its accuracy. It is because this 
benevolence tends to create in the popular mind confusion 
on a matter of morals concerning which we cannot afford 
to have confusion. We cannot afford to believe that the 
seizing of special and unjust privileges, or the use of cor- 
rupt practices or oppression, by which enormous wealth 
is increasingly acquired, may be excused or palliated by 
public gift or private benevolence, or by generosity, how- 
ever bountiful. We cannot afford to let a delayed or 
partial restitution acquire a false glamour, and under a 
false name become a substitute for common honesty." 

In the president and professors of the noble University 
of California are united in an eminent degree the learn- 
ing and refinement of the East with the independence of 
thought and directness of the West. It is a pleasure ex- 
quisite and helpful to breathe the air of Berkeley, to look 
out under the purple haze of a California morning through 
the Golden Gate and into the broad ocean with its endless 
potentialities, then turn and consider the work that has 
been done for future generations, the University buildings 
with their gathered treasures, the faculty, president and 



454 RETROSPECTION 

professors, with bright minds appreciative of their work 
and privileges and ready hands accustomed to highest 
achievement. How shall it seem to those who walk these 
grounds a hundred or a thousand years hence, the efforts 
and accomplishments of to-day ! 



CHAPTER XXIV 

METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 

YOUNG, though the hair is sprinkled with gray, and 
around the eyes and on the ample forehead are 
gathered wrinkles, the marks of conflict. Artists picture 
California as a voluptuous woman. That is as may be, 
San Francisco is a strong man; immature, though ripe in 
experience beyond his years, the pathway dark and sinu- 
ous, sometimes, with here and there a pitfall ; yet the face 
is flushed with high ideals and bright with promise, the 
heart warm and kind toward all, and withal a mind full 
of high aspirations and noble impulses. 

No Romulus and Remus here, no refugee on Venetian 
mud-flat, this sand-blown son of the sturdy friar, but a 
young giant, in whose veins flows the best blood of all the 
nations, and whose seat and title in the not too distant 
future should be that of Lord High Chancellor of the 
Economic World. For so nature has decreed, and man's 
intervention shall not prevail against it. Nature remains, 
while men come and go; nature's laws are immutable, 
while man is but the victim of necessity. God made the 
bay of San Francisco, established the soil and climate of 
California, and threw open the Golden Gate; man per- 
force must follow the finger of destiny lest worse befall. 

It's a pity, even though it brings a blush upon the 
bronzed cheek of our Seraphic Father, that where so much 
virility is required a city must re-sex itself, even to be- 
come such a woman as Chicago emblemizes, who wears 
short skirts, straddles, and says, "I wilL" 

It was christened a man, howsoever at times 1 it may 

455 



456 RETROSPECTION 

act like a woman. Son of a saint, if a saint may have a 
son, the foster-father a friar, Junipero Sera, of the college 
of San Fernando in Mexico. 

As they journeyed by land for the great bay of which 
they had heard mariners speak, one of them said, "We 
have as yet given no mission to our Seraphic Father, Saint 
Francis.' ' 

"If Saint Francis wants a mission let him show us a 
good harbor/' quoth Father Junipero. 

Our Seraphic Saint Francis showed the harbor and 
got the mission. 

But before Saint Francis was the Almighty who made 
this harbor, and who I am constrained to believe made it 
for some purpose befitting saints and sinners alike. 

Quite unexpectedly these Franciscan friars found 
themselves camping in the chaparral overlooking the Gold- 
en Gate. Their order had been the first to enter Lower 
California with the Jesuits, 1596-1683, but when upon 
the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 the Dominicans 
claimed the right to share in the work, the Franciscans 
said, "Leave us Upper California and we will give you the 
Peninsula entirely to yourselves, with all of our property 
as well as the missions of the Jesuits," and so it was 
arranged. 

A brief biography of San Francisco might read like 
this: Age, three-quarters of a century; population, at 
present call it half a million, in the future, if far enough 
distant, ten millions; begins life as a hide and tallow 
town called Yerba Buena with one white tent in 1835; a 
year later sees a small frame house added, in which two 
years after a child is born; population in 1842, 196; in 
1847, 451; in 1848, 850, occupying 200 board and cloth 
houses; "fall of '49 and spring of '50," 50,000, variant, 
and 500 ships at anchor in the bay. 

Then out of the mist come Sam Brannan and his Mor- 
mons; up from the mud arise Mike Reese and Emperor 
Norton; James Lick appears, and Mark Twain, and Noah 



METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 457 

Brooks, while publicans and sinners come in from over 
the mountains and out of the east. Bartlett, the first 
alcalde, changes the name of the town to that of the bay. 
A spasm of crime is followed by a spasm of extermina- 
tion; enter Isaac Bluxome, exit Billy Mulligan, and the 
city proceeds apace. 

James Lick was a man born out of harmony with the 
universe, a discord in the music of the spheres. He hated 
God and God repented having made him. He hated all 
his relatives, because they were his relatives, and little 
wonder he hated them if they were like him. He hated 
his illegitimate son, and would have hated him more had 
he been fairly born. 

Yet James Lick was not a bad man as bad men go 
nowadays. He made his money honestly, kept no cor- 
ruption fund, and left it decently when he died ; left it 
with regret, not so much from love of it, as because it 
troubled him that any one should be benefited by it. 

He was in no respect a typical Californian, for Cali- 
fornians in the early days were not cranks; if so be any 
one should begin in that way the crankiness would soon 
be taken out of him. He came to California from South 
America in 1849 with thirty thousand dollars which he 
had made in pianos, and built a flour-mill at San Jose. 
A miller had once refused him his daughter in marriage 
because of his poverty. ' ' I will show him some day, ' ' said 
Lick. So to show him he lined his San Jose mill with 
polished mahogany, though the recalcitrate parent was 
many leagues away. 

Sand-lots in those days could be bought by the front 
vara, and western addition acreage as dairy farms. Lick 
bought some varas, built the Lick house, lived and died 
there, and erelong was worth seven millions. Seven mil- 
lions in 1860 were equivalent to seventy millions in 11)10. 

"What shall I do with all this money ?" he groaned, 
as D. J. Staples sat beside him as he lay dying. 

Staples suggested several things he might give pos- 



458 RETROSPECTION 

terity to play with, as a telescope, public baths, a foundling 
depot; the Society of Incurables, commonly called the Pio- 
neers, were always in need of drink money, and the Acad- 
emy of Science had bugs to buy. 

"How would it do to take a hundred vara lot and 
set upon it monuments to all my relatives and ancestors; 
it would fill the living ones with such refreshing rage to 
see the money thus spent which I might have given to 
them." 

"Yes," said Staples, "and label it the Garden of the 
Spooks." 

It's a pity Staples laughed him out of it, as it would 
come in handy now as part of the great show. 

Seeing a row of doctors seated against the wall on 
the farther side of the room, waiting for the last great 
change — Doctor Whitney, Doctor Toland, Doctor Sharp, 
and others, all of sufficient standing to send in a respect- 
able bill — he raised himself in bed, and after staring at 
them for a moment, cried out, "What in hell are you all 
doing here? Get out!" And the men of medicine inconti- 
nently took their departure. 

And to this day from the top of Mount Hamilton 
learned men, modern star-gazers, look through the Lick 
telescope and see thirty thousand new worlds in a single 
night, but they see no Lick there. 

It is remarkable how ignorant are people of the east 
and elsewhere as to the conditions of life on the Pacific 
coast, or if not ignorant then how indifferent. A slight 
earthquake in which two or three pedestrians may be 
hurt by a falling cornice will send a thousand persons 
rushing to the Atlantic side there to encounter a blizzard, 
a flood, or a hot wave killing a hundred a day. 

There is no spot of earth where there are fewer casual- 
ties. No enervating heat, no freezing cold ; no sun-strokes, 
electrical storms, or bogs of malaria; no devastating floods, 
no cyclones or tornadoes; no famine or pestilence. Two 



METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 459 

tottering old women thrown to the ground by a temblor 
of moderate force will cause greater consternation through- 
out Christendom than a thousand slain in a single day in 
New York Philadelphia and Chicago by sun-strokes and 
thunder-storms alone. The official report of the catas- 
trophe of 1906 gives 266 killed by falling walls, and all 
the deaths from earthquakes along all the centuries, that 
history and tradition can give, including the above, will 
not bring the number up to 300. The town has never 
posed as a pleasure resort, but there is no place on earth 
where a summer or winter can be passed more comfortably. 

Cities that were made by men in their turn became the 
makers of men, and unless established upon principles of 
equity neither can endure. So have passed to their ac- 
counting Carthage and Palmyra, Babylon the great has 
fallen, Nineveh is called to death or repentance for her 
sins. 

Whatever we who love San Francisco, who have always 
lived there and have always loved, she whose life has been 
our life, whose early achievements fired our youthful blood 
and whose later successes brought maturer pride, what- 
ever we can claim for her, whatever we may fear, we feel 
sure that the hateful megrims of her adolescence have 
passed, and that our best men, that all men, those whom 
we have loved and hated with a hearty love and a holy 
hatred, will bethink themselves of their city and of their 
duty in these days of her great regeneration. 

Six times the town was destroyed by fire prior to the 
great conflagration of 1906, though there are few to-day 
who realize it, or even know of it. Six several tinier 
many of the inhabitants lost their all and were forced to 
begin life anew. Six several times hope revived and the 
necessary courage came, courage not only to do again, but 
to do better than before. True, men were younger then, 
they had not so much to lose, they could not choose but 
hope. Yet at every one of these fires there was propor- 
tionately greater loss and suffering than at the last grand 



460 RETROSPECTION 

catastrophe. The inhabitants, many of them, lost all they 
had and suffered unto death ; what more could any one do? 

That their dying was not comfortable was one thing. 
The winter of 1849-50 was severe. It was unusually cold 
and rainy, and the cloth tents and board houses scattered 
along the muddy streets and over the bleak dunes afforded 
poor protection from the weather. In them lay many 
faint with hunger and suffering with sickness, notably that 
insidious disease, the Panama fever, which creeps into 
the bones of its victims and lies dormant, awaiting some 
sinister occasion to show itself. The main streets were 
slush up to the knees ; fuel was scarce, and there was little 
water except such as was held in the sky. Household 
comforts and conveniences there were none. The wet and 
shivering denizens of the future metropolis found warmth 
and brightness only in the great gambling halls, whose 
lamps alone illuminated the dismal streets. They suffered, 
but as there were only three thousand of them they could 
not make the noise throughout the world that was made 
by the later three hundred thousand. 

The first of these fires was on the 24th of December, 
1849, consuming the great gambling Exchange, rented at 
$16,000 a month, and the Parker house, rented at $10,000. 
There were two fires on the 4th and 14th of May, 1850, 
the work of incendiaries, which between them laid in ashes 
the entire business parts of the town, wiping out the past, 
bursting banks, and bankrupting most of the merchants. 

They did not have to wait a year for insurance money, 
as none of them were insured; so they gathered up what 
boards they were able to obtain — lumber was a dollar a 
foot — and were reelecting structures for incoming goods 
before the ashes were cold. 

Times were booming; ships were coming in every day, 
each bringing something to use or sell ; therefore there was 
on the ground sufficient property for a fourth fire on the 
17th of September, 1850, to foot up losses of several millions. 



METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 461 

With another 4th of May, 1851, came the fifth great 
fire, and on the 22d of June of the same year the sixth, the 
last two coming so near together as to lay in ashes once 
more the entire town, save the scattering hamlets on the 
hillside. 

The houses latest built were still of wood and cloth, 
besides many tents. High winds swept in over the dunes, 
winds later checked by park forestry and city buildings; 
the firemen were inefficient and incendiarism was easy. 
Among the structures consumed was the First Presbyterian 
church, constructed in New York of wood and sent out in 
sections by sailing vessels. 

Other cities suffered also. Sacramento was several times 
burned, the fire of November 2, 1852, costing five millions 
of dollars. 

The fire of 1906 was an experience. It is well enough 
to undergo one such to know how it feels, but one would 
not like them too often. The day itself was not fatal to 
many, but before the year was out thousands died in con- 
sequence, some from the shock, some from a broken heart. 
Men and women past their prime found it hard to have 
their all, the results of a lifetime of labor and saving, sud- 
denly swept away leaving them not a dollar. Without their 
former energy, without opportunity, business connections 
severed, broken in mind body and estate, their best course 
they said was to die. 

It was a bad time generally, that just after the catas- 
trophe. We were deluged with the bread of charity while 
the cormorants of industry preyed upon the necessities of 
the rebuilders, Congress as a whole being no whit better 
than its component parts. The price of building material 
was advanced to fill the pockets of monopolists, and the 
concession asked, the temporary removal of the duty on 
lumber, which had been granted to Chicago, — was denied. 
Congress seemed to have forgetten what the country owed 
to California in times past, more especially representatives 



462 RETROSPECTION 

from the southern states. There was little civic pride and 
less patriotism at home. The octopus held the country and 
aliens filled the public offices. The newspapers sold them- 
selves to high crime and high crime sold the city. In high 
society the worst qualities came to the surface, and in low 
society were found dregs. "Go to," they cried, "we will 
build here a new city, a Paris in America we will make it, 
and withal a place of pleasure as well as a mart of com- 
merce. ' ' 

Paris in America ! God save us ! Is that what we want ? 
Paris anywhere, least of all in America. Gay, fluttering, 
hollow, bloodless, soulless, Paris and McCarthy; Paris and 
Schmitz and Ruef, with the lords of high grade labor and 
the lords of high crime for ministers and satellites. 

There was talk at first of laying out the city anew, with 
boulevards radiating from a civic centre and encircling the 
surrounding hills. Some slight improvements were made, 
but nothing like the beautification at first proposed was ac- 
complished, though the directors of the fair promised that 
something should be done later. The buildings, of course, 
were of a better class than those destroyed, with rents cor- 
respondingly increased, owing to increased cost of build- 
ing and increased taxes and insurance. The civic centre 
laid out at Market and Van Ness was a move in the right 
direction. 

Never had women so much money to spend ; never were 
men and women so extravagant. Automobiles and dress; 
poker for the sportive, bridge for the brainless. 

California has more motor machines to the population 
than any other country in the world, more than any other 
state except New York with five times the population and 
wealth. Over $200,000,000 has thus far been expended, 
with current expenses of $100,000,000 a year, participated 
in by many who can ill afford it. The city man calls it 
business and pleasure, while the farmer without pretend- 
ing any excuse mortgages his land and pays more for a 
machine than the cost of the house he lives in. For this 



METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 463 

and other extravagances there must some day be a 
reckoning. 

As rehabilitation progressed strangers who wished to 
say something pleasant would hold up their hands and ex- 
claim : ' ' What wonders ! " " You have done so much ! ' ' As 
a matter of fact, progress was slow, much slower than we 
had anticipated. The insurance companies were backward 
in adjusting claims, and it was over a year before any great 
number of the losers knew where they stood. The com- 
panies did their best. It was a severe blow to them, one 
out of the ordinary, and they deserve praise, though they 
were not backward in making reprisals afterward. Even 
when all losses were paid, and some money came in from 
abroad, and there were two or three hundred millions to 
spend, still rebuilding was slow, wages were high, material 
a monopoly, high crime a hindrance, labor leaders in office, 
and bribery and immorality everywhere. 

As I have said, there were many noble men in San 
Francisco in the days of '49 and '50, the new and strange 
conditions bringing out their best as well as their worst 
qualities; men who not only talked right but acted, who 
were willing to make some sacrifice of self for the public 
good — such men as Thomas Starr King, Thomas H. Selby, 
Henry P. Coon, James King of William; and dropping to 
second grade, William T. Sherman, Thomas 0. Larkin, H. 
W. Halleck, and John Parrott. 

Mining is a manly occupation; it stands for independ- 
ence and makes men fearless. At an early day the question 
was asked, How long is this yield of gold likely to continue? 
Coming to California in the third year of grace, I found 
myself unexpectedly present at the turning of the tide. 
Then, on to the middle of the first decade there were as 
many home-returning as newly-arriving, and as many 
more who would have been glad to go home if they could ; 
many, alas! with souls dead within them, some sodden with 
drink or shivering with palsied hope, destined never to see 
home again. 



464 RETROSPECTION 

"They are all petered out, the diggings up there," said 
the old miners as they swung themselves down into the 
towns. "It takes a mine to work a mine now." 

As the steamer Golden Gate paddled out of Acapulco 
harbor one morning in May, 1852, with 1500 California 
bound passengers, the W infield Scott appeared with 600 
homeward bound, some with hearts aglow, others despond- 
ent, for not one in five would have twenty dollars in his 
poeket on reaching home. He spoke true who said that 
every dollar taken from the mines cost two dollars to get 
it. On these two steamers, by way of illustration, we may 
reckon the out-go at some $300,000 with small proportion- 
ate returns. 

In the city the merchants, who had prepared themselves 
for more rather than less business and gave credit reck- 
lessly to almost every one who asked it, were failing, the 
oldest commercial houses going like the popping of corn. 
Many of thorn had failed already two or three times before 
1856, the frequent fire balancing both sides of the ledger 
and closing consignments at a single stroke. There was 
but little if any open disgrace attached to these failures; 
all were in the same boat ; every heart knowetli its own in- 
tegrity — or the lack of it; it was the thing expected; yet 
there were many abrupt terminations of business and de- 
partures from the country by those who might have con- 
tinued and paid their debts had they been so disposed. 

The two great rival express companies were Adams and 
company and Wells Fargo and company. They had offices 
in every part of the coast and carried letters as well as pack- 
ages. On the arrival of the Sacramento and Stockton boats, 
each attended by a special messenger, about eight o'clock 
in the evening the express wagons would be waiting at the 
wharf, and when the express-box was thrown ashore they 
would dash off at full speed for their respective offices. 
This was the idea of business in those days, at all events 
it was good advertising; just as the Paris newsman to-day 



METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 465 

will start on a run for nowhere as soon as he gets his papers, 
trusting to human nature to call after him. Adams and 
company did a large banking as well as express business, 
and was considered the safest of all western financial in- 
stitutions. 

The first five hundred dollars I ever made — and never 
has there been another such — I deposited with Adams and 
company. "That," I said, "is salted down to take me 
home some day." But a friend wanting to use it, I drew 
it out of the bank for him only a day or two before it 
failed. There was many another poor fellow similarly 
situated who was not so fortunate. 

Wells Fargo and company, frightened over the failure 
of Adams and company, closed their doors and had a re- 
ceiver appointed, Henry M. Naglee, a wealthy bankrupt 
banker. A cooler survey of their affairs next day showed 
that suspension was not necessary, whereupon their re- 
ceiver was requested to resign. "Oh! certainly/ ' he said, 
"ten thousand dollars;" which, considering the man, and 
the fact that they could not afford to fail for ten times 
that amount, was thought to be getting well out of it. 

From the first, and until intimidated by the octopus, 
this city had been composed of men of pronounced intel- 
ligence and energy ; of men active in mind and body, who 
knew not fear, who came hither to accomplish something 
and were bent upon doing it. There was no non-working 
class, except thieves, swindlers, demagogues, and agitators. 
Manufactures of various sorts sprang up and flourished 
until killed or crippled by labor leaders and the expulsion 
of the Chinese. 

Ever since which time we have been afraid. We meet 
and talk, but dare not say what we think. The wo ids 
"cheap labor" are taboo; yet in our hearts and minds we 
know that with labor restricted by ruinous regulations and 
held at ruinous rates manufactures cannot prosper, and 
that without manufactures the city cannot prosper. 



466 RETROSPECTION 

We beat the air and cry, "We want more people, more 
settlers, more farmers, more mechanics, more laborers. " 
"When the canal is finished there will be a large immigra- 
tion; all classes will come, and we shall have money, and 
hired servants to help us with our work." 

Why are we forever so solicitous for more population? 
Are not a hundred millions enough, half of them so lately 
aliens and the world's refuse? We have more people here 
already than we know what to do with, more than we can 
healthily absorb, or properly govern, or teach to govern 
us. Why more settlors on lands they cannot work, more 
farmers with crops they cannot gather, more working-men 
to stand aloof and starve because the monopolists of labor 
will not permit them to work, more loafers and tramps to 
beg and steal and fill the prisons and hospitals, more low- 
grade immigrants to herd in the cities, fill sweat-shops, and 
feed corruption? 

Let us use a little common sense, my influential friends. 
Let us arise, declare our independence, drive out the dema- 
gogic lords of labor, and give ourselves and the working- 
man freedom. 

You must admit, oh mighty men of money ! who corner 
capital, talk canal, and get up a great fair, that before this 
one question you stand palsied, afraid to speak, while your 
raw product goes past your door for manufacture to those 
you have driven away. 

To a banker one day I said, "Unlicensed unionized labor 
is ruining the town." 

1 ' I know it, but who is going to say so ? I am not. ' ' 

To a merchant I said, ' ' The labor leaders are strangling 
industry. ' ' 

"I know it, but who is going to talk about it?" I am 
not." 

To a politician, "We want cheaper labor for farm and 
factory. ' ' 

"I know it, but to say so would ruin me." 

"You, yes, perhaps; but would it ruin a man to say so, 



METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 467 

a man swayed by fear neither of loss of votes nor loss of 
business? Did it ruin the men of Baltimore, of Duluth, 
of Minneapolis, for them to say so ? 

So craven cupidity runs the gamut. 

So spake not he who said, "I will drive the Southern 
Pacific railway out of politics. ' ' 

Nor he who said, "I will finance this reform on one 
condition : that there shall be no going back. ' ' 

Nor he who said, ' ' I will put your mayor and his hench- 
man in prison before the year is out. ' ' 

Nor he who said, "I will make that nest of criminal 
higher-ups shake in their shoes before I am done with 
them." 

Cowardice is an unseemly word which none of us like 
applied to ourselves. Yet San Francisco is full of it, and 
has been since the coming of the Central Pacific railroad, 
whose people brought it over and lodged it in banker's 
vaults, in the offices of corporate capital, hiding it under 
the desks of business men. Before this, Calif ornians knew 
not the meaning of the word ; they were afraid of nothing ; 
now we tremble and whisper when we speak of certain of 
the most vital interests of the city. Not so were the men 
who made Chicago, who made Birmingham, who made 
Cleveland, Detroit, and Kansas city. 

As we have not forgotten those who saved the city and 
state fifty years ago, James King of William, Charles 
Doane, William T. Coleman, Thomas Starr King, and their 
many associates, so let us never forget those who have 
saved the state and city in these later days of peril, Hiram 
Johnson, James D. Phelan, Heney, Burns, Langdon, Long, 
and the present apostle of the new dispensation, James 
Rolph. 

When the labor leaders say, "If you cannot pick your 
fruit except by Asiatic labor, let it go unpicked; if you 
cannot manufacture with labor at the rates fixed by us 
you can go without manufactures;" if the men of San 
Francisco are satisfied to let it rest at that there is nothing 



468 RETROSPECTION 

more to be said. Not only do the better class of working- 
men refuse factory labor for themselves, but they refuse 
it for their children. 

AVhile Los Angeles, Seattle, and Portland take and 
maintain a manly stand for independence in industrial 
affairs, and prosper accordingly, San Francisco slinks 
away, shirks the issue, and stifles her glorious opportunities 
under a load of personal and corporate cowardice. 

The once self-reliant individualism that was our boast, 
the individualism that rouses ambition and fosters courage, 
it seems has disappeared from our midst, or lies buried in 
cliques and cabals. The individualism of to-day is differ- 
ent, holding men apart and depriving them of independent 
thought and action, thus leaving them an easy prey for 
the spoiler. 

During the last half century manufacturing centres 
have moved from the east to the mid-continent states. One 
move more will carry them to the Pacific — to Seattle or 
Los Angeles, if labor conditions at San Francisco remain 
as they are now. With labor free and manly, independent 
business men, men unselfish and unafraid, we should see 
the great inland factories of the United States moving to 
San Francisco, where they would have a perfect climate 
and the best of food possibilities, and be stationed upon 
what they would make the world's highway of commerce 
and industries. 

It shows what may be done, when we consider that in 
spite of all our failures intelligently to meet the issue and 
properly avail ourselves of the opportunity before us, the 
trade of the United States with Latin America has in- 
creased during the past decade from one and a half billions 
to nine billions of dollars. 

Let the influential men of San Francisco, wealthy or 
otherwise, declare for and maintain a society, a city, a 
state of progressive civilization and economic development 
along the lines of honesty and morality, and there will be 
plenty of prosperity for all. 



.METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 469 

The manufactures of Chicago amounted to $1,281,- 
313,000 in 1909. When San Francisco manufactures twice 
as much there will be around the Bay six millions of people ; 
when four times as much — a matter easy enough of accom- 
plishment for the right men working in the right way — 
there will be a population of twenty millions. 

There are here at our door and in our midst to-day as 
I write, some thousands of working-men, American 
mechanics, respectable and efficient, who came here to 
work, more especially on the exposition grounds, but who 
are held up and prevented by the labor leaders. We work 
to encourage immigration, advertise and organize societies 
for that purpose, and then submit to an outrage like this 
without a word of protest, certain newspapers even taking 
sides with the spoilers of our city. 

I have seen within the week of this writing, sober, 
manly, intelligent and able American working-men begging 
on the streets, while behind the labor monopoly were mil- 
lions worth of public work to be done, held for the proteges 
of unionism at the modest wage of from three to seven 
dollars a day. 

One-third of those who live by labor, fed and fattened 
on a wage of three to seven dollars a day, and the two- 
thirds who do not pay tribute to the labor lords thrust 
aside to shift as they may. 

What then will the labor monopoly do, what will the 
business men of San Francisco do when the Panama steer- 
age traffic places, as it now promises, thirty millions of im- 
migrants from the south of Europe on the Pacific coast 
where are now but three millions of people? 

San Franciscans may now, if they choose, lay the foun- 
dations of a city the peer of any in ancient or modern times, 
or they may let slip the opportunity and sink into the in- 
significance that selfishness, cowardice, and cupidity are 
sure to accomplish. 

It is true that labor can gain no concession from capital 
16 



470 RETROSPECTION 

except by force, but there are better ways of applying 
force than that employed by the labor monopolists. 

As it stands now, every enforced concession gained by 
the labor leaders reacts on the working-man. Wages are 
advanced, but the cost of living is advanced proportionately 
more. The labor-day is shortened, which is only a subter- 
fuge for a further advance of wages while curtailing the 
earning efficiency of the laborer. 

It is not labor that is the slave of wealth, but the idle 
rich. You cannot enslave labor, though you may crush 
the laborer. The man of idleness and luxury is caught in 
the toils of his own wealth, while labor is lord-dominator 
of all, and the laborer is its minister. 

Sentiment is a fine thing, particularly when there is 
money in it. Having annoyed the employer and bled the 
laborer to the fullest extent, some of the federation frater- 
nity conceived the happy idea of organizing tramps; but 
as these noblemen in their peregrinations seemed to pre- 
fer their scraps of bread without work, the project was 
abandoned. 

It is not possible to find on any continent or island a 
place where are united more or greater advantages for 
manufacturing than may be seen around San Francisco 
bay. 

It is not possible to find a region on earth more need- 
ful of the products of manufactures than that encircling 
the Pacific Ocean. 

First as to raw material, then we will consider the site, 
and finally look around for a market. 

The shores of the Pacific offer an abundance of every- 
thing the world contains, metals, minerals, and vegetable 
products, nowhere found all in one place, but which may 
be brought to a common industrial centre by ocean trans- 
portation at small cost. 

An industrial centre is essential to the fullest success. 
We cannot go south to engage in the cocoa and caoutchouc 



METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 471 

industry, or north to frame battle-ships; we cannot well 
operate planing-mills in Yucatan, or foundries in Alaska, 
or sugar-refineries on the Hawaiian islands. 

It is well understood that the white man cannot live 
and work permanently in the tropics, that the redundant 
wealth of lands under the equator must be controlled and 
developed from cooler latitudes but with dark-skinned 
labor; that all the world outside of Europe is destined to 
be under the economic dominion of English-speaking and 
Russian-speaking peoples. 

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, 
as Benjamin Kidd has shown, nearly five millions of square 
miles of the tropical regions of the world, equal in area 
to the whole of Europe, were brought under the control of 
continental Europe in the name of colonial expansion. 

The products of the temperate zone our home lands will 
supply. We can have our farms in the tropics and our 
factories at San Francisco ; our coffee farms in Costa Rica, 
our tea and cotton plantations in China, our mines and ore 
reduction works all around the ocean, but the masters of 
industry will remain at San Francisco bay. 

As to the site, and the natural and artificial advantages 
as a world-centre of industry, it is impossible to over 
estimate them. Power unlimited in the form of oil and 
electricity are at hand, and all the other natural require- 
ments. The bay of San Francisco has a shore line capable 
of accommodating the work of the world, where docks, 
wharves, and warehouses may be extended ad libitum, and 
where ocean vessels and railways may meet. 

The climate, influenced by the proximity of the ocean, is 
equable, cool in summer and warm in winter, temperature 
seldom rising ten degrees above or falling ten degrees 
below 70° the year round ; no freezing cold nor suffocating 
heat, so that the laborer may comfortably and healthily 
devote as many hours out of the twenty-four to work as 
he chooses. The air is pure, always bringing in moisture 
from the ocean, driving away disease, and tincturing with 



472 RETROSPECTION 

health and strength the blood of the operative. On the 
denuded hills there is no decaying vegetation to make 
malaria. Food is plentiful and cheap; there are always 
meat, vegetables, fish, and fruit in abundance. Prices may 
be advanced sometimes temporarily from fictitious causes, 
but they soon return to normal. 

Lift the icy covering of Alaska, and in that vast labora- 
tory of nature, where the three great continental ranges 
of mountains meet and mingle, we find natural wealth 
enough of our own to keep running our factories for a 
thousand years. 

There is also at hand plenty of capital; what is just 
now lacking, but will not be so for long, are men of intel- 
ligence and energy absolutely fearless. 

Let us now consider the marketing of our products. 
Right at hand, around the Pacific, mainlands and islands, 
are shore lines equal to 100,000 miles in length, back of 
which are undeveloped countries of vast extent, virgin 
lands teeming with every form of nature's wealth, coal, iron 
and oil, mountains of metal, forests of finest timber and 
precious woods, broad rivers inviting to inland traffic and 
wide fertile plains of every soil and climate. 

Here on this largest of oceans, almost within touch, 
all of it within a few days' sail, we have half the world 
for a customer, while we have only to pass through the 
Panama canal to reach the other half. Here are we at the 
natural and commercial centre of this new world of eco- 
nomic development, — that is if we choose to make of it a 
centre, — in the midst of peoples many of them half-civil- 
ized but all rapidly awakening, and all ready to adopt our 
customs and use our products. As the centuries come and 
go these Pacific shores will become radiant with cities and 
countries of the highest civilization, higher than any the 
world has yet imagined. 

On the other side of us, east and south and north, are 
lines of railways connecting with every part of the two 
Americas. 



METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 473 

"Would you like to see this San Francisco a hundred or 
two hundred years hence, when law and justice are one, and 
women are sensible and men honest, and labor and capital 
are reconciled, and high crime is out of fashion, and dema- 
gogues are dead, and graft and greed forgotten, then shut 
your eyes and open your imagination. 

A bay sixty miles long and six miles wide, with bluff 
and shallow shores curving around flats and headlands. 
Through high hills which serve as the throne-room of an 
imperial city a strait appears, draining the Sierra foot- 
hills and five hundred miles of valley land, the water pass- 
ing on and out through the Bay and through the Golden 
Gate. Along all this winding water-front are ten thou- 
sand factories plying their craft, while ocean vessels and 
continental traffic meet and minister to them, carrying 
away their product and distributing it throughout the 
world. 

Upon the hills back of this border of smoke-enveloped 
industry, under a sky of purple haze, in the bracing air of 
ocean are miles upon miles of happy homes, palaces, cot- 
tages, and bungalows to suit all tastes and classes, views of 
surpassing beauty to delight the eye, and all one city, 
economic mistress of the world; all made by the working- 
man and stocked by capital. 

This, or drifting dunes and chaparral bordered by an 
empty bedraggled shore along which are the huts of the 
labor lords and working-men hanging idly around demand- 
ing twenty dollars for a three-hour day at chopping wood. 

Just as the present and future generations shall elect. 
But let it be plainly understood, and it requires no prophet 
to tell the outcome of it, nothing great or important will 
ever be accomplished on this bay until labor is free and 
the wage reasonable. 

San Francisco proper comprises, or should comprise, 
all the lands fronting on San Francisco bay and the strait 
of Carquinez, some 300 miles of shore line, including coves 
and indentations, with all the towns and cities thereon, 



474 RETROSPECTION 

present and in the future, the population numbering any- 
where from ten to twenty millions. All to come after the 
Panama canal, — some time after. 

Neither does one have to assume the role of prophet to 
foretell to some extent the destiny of the countries around 
the Pacific. Evolution is as fixed a quantity as heat or 
substance. It has always been paramount in progress and 
always will be. Evolution is progress. We have only to 
notice what has been, and the trend of events, to determine 
the future iu regard to our western development. 

Progress has always been from east to west, and now the 
last of the west looms before us as the largest of oceans with 
the richest of shores. From under the snows of Alaska to 
the torrid zone of Panama, and on the other sides the same, 
are uncovered riches as much superior to the once natural 
wealth around the Atlantic as the Pacific is superior to the 
Atlantic in dimensions. 

The vast natural wealth of these Pacific countries is 
now to be brought to light and developed, and in this 
work the Panama canal will assist. All the world will com- 
pete. There is before us a great industrial conflict in which 
all the nations will take part. 

The victors in the warfare will be and remain the 
economic rulers of the earth beside whom the political 
rulers will be as pygmies. 

The advantage of a ship canal, or of ship canals, for 
there will be eventually not one or two, but ten, of the in- 
fluence upon America, upon every seaboard of the Pacific, 
upon the world, upon human enlightenment and advance- 
ment, the wildest dreams of the enthusiast cannot en- 
compass. 

Imagine the lands bordering on the Pacific inhabited 
by peoples equal to those who now live upon the Atlantic, 
having genius equal to those who once occupied the 
Mediterranean, with some thousands of years of intellec- 
tual culture and refinement added, people like those on the 
western side of Europe from Scandinavia to Brittany, and 



METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 475 

on the eastern side of America from Maine to Florida, 
races destined in due time to dominate the world. 

Imagine such as these all around this greatest of oceans, 
in place of the heathenish hordes of Asia and the mongrel 
breeds of Spanish-America; picture here scores of cities 
the equal of Athens, Alexandria, and Rome in the days of 
their glory, the equal of London, Paris, and New York as 
they are now and will be, a Philadelphia in place of Peking 
and a Boston where Valparaiso stands, and all around mil- 
lions of happy homes where virtue dwells and charity and 
humanity hold sway, and a faint realization of the future 
greatness of the Pacific is begun. 

In the more immediate future much is expected from 
the Panama canal. By those even who have no definite 
ideas how the possibilities thence arising are to be utilized, 
immediate benefits are expected. The volume of business 
will increase, profits will be larger, money plentiful, with 
an easy flow into somewhat empty coffers. Real estate will 
advance, freights everywhere will be lower, and the back- 
bone of the great overland railway monopolies will be 
broken. 

It is to be feared that some of these dreamers will be 
disappointed. For so thought California on the eve of 
the completion of the first overland railway. A great 
industrial millennium was at hand. 

Business was laid out on a broader scale and real prop- 
erty values advanced enormously. The legitimate profits 
of half a dozen decades were discounted. From Seattle 
to San Diego the fortune of every man was as good as 
made. Then came the first engine to San Francisco, snort- 
ing down Market street, bedecked with flags, flowers, and 
furbelows. Hats went up amid loud cheers and congratu- 
lations. 

After that the deluge. Everybody was in debt to every- 
body and all wanted their money. Values fell. Money 
tightened. Panic ensued. Old-established business firms 



476 RETROSPECTION 

went to the wall, and thousands of merchants and manu- 
facturers were ruined. 

In regard to California and the influence of the canal, 
that will be as the Californians shall determine. Aside 
from its effect on overland freight it will be of little benefit 
to San Francisco as business is now running. It will 
prove beneficial in so far as it stimulates manufactures and 
no farther. As we will not then be situated on the main 
line of travel between the ancient east and the modern west, 
but rather on one side of it, vessels passing through the 
canal will scarcely come to us except for some purpose. 
They will come only as they have something to come for, 
something to bring or take away. 

Without manufactures our commerce will amount to but 
little, being but the carrying away of our farm products, 
which will be done largely in tramp steamers subsidized by 
the governments for whose benefit we have dug the canal. 
The railways, assisted by their tools in Congress, will 
capture and control the canal if they can. 

Not alone San Francisco aspires to greatness by reason 
of the great ditch. There is scarcely a seaport on the 
Pacific, not to mention those of other oceans, and on in- 
land lakes and rivers, that does not fancy itself the gate- 
way to something which when the waterway is finished will 
open to it wealth and prosperity. 

Admiral Kimotsuki expects the canal to make Japan 
the radiating centre of the world's shipping trade. All 
admirals everywhere, and all who are not admirals, expect 
something from the canal. Let us hope that none of them 
will be disappointed ; yet it is not easy to see how the canal 
will bring wealth to any who will not reach out a hand for 
it. All things come to him who waits, — except the Panama 
canal. 

Of a truth we may be sure of this, that unless the 
people of the United States do something more than dig 
the canal and place guns over it, the great work will accrue 
more to the benefit of Japan and China, of England and 



METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 477 

Germany, than to any of the seaports of the United States, 
whether on the Pacific or on the Atlantic. 

As matters stand now, New York will profit most of any 
city by the canal. Liverpool, Hamburg, and Havre will 
also come in for a share. San Francisco will profit the 
least of any, having the least of any to sell ; if there is not 
some radical change in industrial conditions the canal will 
prove a disadvantage rather than a benefit to our people. 

Japan will profit by the canal, also China if she re- 
mains long enough awake. With her hundred cotton and 
paper mills, representing forty millions of capital, Japan 
is in a fair way to become prominent in manufacturing as 
well as in carrying. 

Germany is exploiting the world for fresh fields of 
enterprise, has a foothold in Central and South America, 
and is difficult to dislodge, particularly when she can com- 
mand labor for half the price we pay. 

England is also largely interested in Latin America, 
with railroads in the Argentine and Brazil and water- 
works in Buenos Aires and elsewhere. 

Even the heathen rage about it. Said the eminent 
Asiatic Tong King Chong before the Commonwealth club, 
1 'There is no room for discussion as to the great value 
which a free, unrestricted market in China is to the United 
States. And yet the United States is losing fast and at 
an alarming rate its commercial standing in China. China 
is rapidly ceasing to be a market place for American prod- 
ucts. It is unbelievable that the United States should per- 
mit this rich, this glorious opportunity to slip from its 
grasp." 

Evidently Mr. Tong King Chong had not read the life 
of Dennis Kearney and the Irish conquest of the United 
States. 

Not many decades ago Great Britain set the manufac- 
turing pace for the world. She does so no longer, France 
and Germany came forward; then the United States out- 
stripped them all. Now Japan and China are putting in 



478 RETROSPECTION 

an appearance, and Europe and America, following an 
insane policy of self-destruction, are likely to be left 
behind. 

It is not that good business does not recognize manu- 
factures as the chief factor in progress, but because good 
business lacks the nerve to assume command and compel 
conditions. Not long since a large and enthusiastic meet- 
ing was organized and officered in San Francisco by promi- 
nent men for the promotion of manufactures. Various 
phases of the subject were eloquently discussed, but never 
a word about labor — a feast of industrialism with only 
husks to eat. 

It is useless to arouse ourselves now and then from 
slumber to rebuild a burnt city or hold a great fair, to cry 
boost ! boost ! and then fall asleep again. It is useless 
improvising a grand organization for the promotion of 
manufactures without a word about the workers who are 
to keep those factories running. 

Any one can see that unless we ourselves make things 
to sell, and then go out and sell them, there is little busi- 
ness for us in San Francisco, and the Panama canal will 
forever be doing us more harm than good. 

And yet more quickly than to us will come home to 
others these facts, and they will say, "If we are not 
allowed to manage our affairs to suit ourselves in San 
Francisco, we will go where we can do so." 

It is no easy task, for in entering this field to make and 
sell we encounter competition with all the world. We 
come in contact at once with money, machinery, experienced 
managers, and skilled labor, all at a lower rate, money and 
men, than we are able or willing to supply, than the leaders 
of labor will permit us to supply. 

Then we must give it up, for we are scarcely childish 
enough to suppose that we can pay operatives two or three 
times as much as others pay and successfully compete. 

Will some one tell us the nature of the windfall, labor 
conditions remaining the same, that San Francisco may 



METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 479 

expect on the completion of the Panama canal? In the 
absence of manufactures for export, and with no increase 
in agricultural products, commerce will fall off rather than 
increase, as Asiatic, east American, and European traffic 
will be diverted from us to equatorial or canal routes. 

Wherefore is it wiser in us to look the facts squarely in 
the face and follow them to their logical conclusions, meet- 
ing the issues like men, or to continue to cry aloud our 
merits, what we have done and are going to do, while do- 
ing nothing. 

Times are dull enough here now, acres of the burnt 
district still bare, acres of houses to rent, workmen idle, 
and labor leaders holding the town. To avert still harder 
times the Chinese expulsion laws must be annulled, the 
labor leaders deposed, and labor made free. 

Our business men are keenly alive to the situation but 
they seem powerless to act. They can raise ten or twenty 
millions for a world's fair, but they cannot start up a 
non-union brick-yard or put down the monopoly of lumber. 

This is why San Francisco remains so quiet, the city is 
being strangled by labor leaders who enslave the laborers 
and then dictate to employers and employed alike. And 
no one dares speak of it. The press, politicians, and even 
the business man are all equally silent; all are fearful of 
loss of patronage. Capital, brave enough to punish petty 
offenses, cringes before rich criminals and the manipula- 
tors of labor. 

Said an intelligent shipmaster the other day to a banker 
who loves to pose as a public-spirited friend of progress 
and promoter of the city's interests: "Do you know you 
are holding back this town, holding it back a hundred 
years by permitting labor leaders to run it, and to run 
you. Why, if one of my ships requires repairs of only a 
thousand dollars it pays to send it to Seattle." 

It is to be hoped at least that the managers of the fair 
will not allow visitors and exhibitors to be held up by 
labor-leaders, or imposed upon by any one. Invited hither 



480 RETROSPECTION 

by the city, the state, the United States, eternal disgrace 
would be ours did we allow any imposition to befall. 

Industries rest on a false foundation when wages are 
forced up instead of being left to economic laws sure to 
govern in the end. No matter what wage the laborer is 
paid, consumption and demand alone determine the value 
of the product. If the article produced is good and cheap, 
better and cheaper than similar products from other manu- 
facturers, then the demand will bring the increase and 
more labor is required. If the contrary prevails, the de- 
mand ceases and the laborer loses employment. 

This does not imply an advance in the price of labor, 
for the increased price of labor, which must necessarily 
increase the cost of the article manufactured, may rule it 
out of the market and leave the field to competitors, to the 
detriment alike of capital and labor. 

San Francisco is not a free city. It is held in a vise 
by the manipulators of labor, who are feared by good 
business, which seems to distrust honesty more than ras- 
cality, and the rule of decency and morality more than the 
rule of those from whom can be obtained the city's rights 
and privileges at small cost and immunity from the effects 
of any illegalities. 

Wages and living in the United States are twice as high 
as in Europe, and four times as high as in Asia ; how then 
are we to compete for the traffic of the world but by the 
modifications of uneconomic and ruinous ideas. The laws 
of progress cannot be relegated to fictitious realms and 
forced for any considerable length of time to remain there. 
Manufactures have always marched hand in hand with 
civilization, from east to west, from the old half civiliza- 
tion of Cathay and India overland to the Mediterranean, 
to western Europe, to America, and back to Nippon and 
the new Cathay ; manufactures are civilization. 

We used to send our cotton to England to be made into 
cloth for us; then New England did the work, and later 
Texas. San Francisco bay, or San Diego, would naturally 



METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 481 

have been the present cotton centre, but the industry and 
with it the raw material passed California by, and jumped 
to Japan, because we lacked the enterprise to secure it, 
because we avoid as a pestilence Asiatic operatives, because 
we live and serve under the lords of labor, who drive from 
our door even European labor, white working-men who 
have come from afar at our instigation to work. 

Formerly we obtained cloths, carpets, glass and earthen 
ware, fine cutlery and hardware from England, silk and 
wines from France, and a hundred other things which 
later eastern America made, but jumping over the Pacific 
coast these industries go to Asia because we lack the cour- 
age to defy the labor leaders and politicians and obtain from 
the proper source the best labor material the world affords, 
and so supply the world with our manufactured products. 

The export trade of the United States is nearly a billion 
of dollars. That should be the export trade of San Fran- 
cisco alone when twenty or thirty thousand miles of Pacific 
seaboard are lined with stately cities like Baltimore and 
Boston, with now and then a New York, a London, and a 
Paris. Indiana is now the centre of population in the 
United States; then it will be Colorado or Utah, or even 
Nevada, perhaps,- for the shores of the Pacific will support 
a mighty people. 

England has her colonies for customers ; she makes good 
cloth and steel, and stands first in banking and shipping; 
she has no continent of her own to develop, but she lends 
on mortgage to those who have and makes money. 

Germany's banking and shipping experiences are new, 
but drummers and salesmen are not; in commerce she is 
aggressive and makes money by studying the requirements 
of her customers. 

The French are among the most prospered of European 
nations because they are best in certain manufactures, — 
not the cheapest but the best in handicraft and texture. 

It is a significant fact that throughout the United 



482 RETROSPECTION 

States in almost every instance cities where labor is free 
are prosperous, while places in which labor is restrained 
are not prosperous. 

Call it the open or closed shop, the tyranny of labor, 
the stifling effects of economic extortion or what you will, 
the fact remains that the city of free labor prospers while 
the city of enslaved labor does not. The most reliable 
statisticians place the loss to San Francisco thus far of the 
labor tyranny at one hundred millions of dollars. They 
establish further, through building operations for 1910, as 
compared with those of 1909, the heavy hand that union- 
ism lays upon the prosperity of a city. The free city of 
Detroit had an increase of 22 per cent. ; the free city of 
Cleveland 15 per cent.: tin 1 enslaved city of Buffalo a de- 
crease of 7 per cent., and Milwaukee, with a socialist mayor, 
a decrease of 15 per cent. The free city of Los Angeles 
had an increase of 64 per cent, and Portland, Oregon, of 
61 per cent. The enslaved city of San Francisco had a de- 
crease of 19 per cent, and St. Louis a decrease of 17 per 
cent. The free city of Duluth had an increase of 262 per 
cent, and Atlanta, Georgia, of 33 per cent. Most of the 
large cities show decreases, including New York, Phila- 
delphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington. On the other hand, 
the following places, which are more or less free, show in- 
creases: Baltimore, Indianapolis, Memphis, Hartford, 
Toledo, Louisville, and Richmond. 

When we consider the attendant economic forces newly 
set to work we no longer marvel over the multiplication 
of wealth. Railroad freight and passenger traffic double 
every ten years. Bank deposits, under free labor condi- 
tions, double every six years. The yield of iron and coal 
and gold is greater than ever. All the grand economic 
energy in us and in our environment may be at once 
liberated by liberating labor. All depends upon the in- 
dustrial efficiency of the men of San Francisco bay. 

The talk no longer is of our market in China, our mar- 
ket in India, our market in Europe. Henceforth all the 



METROPOLITAN SAN FRANCISCO 483 

world is market to every man. In the creation, in the 
production, individualism comes to the front. It is what each 
individual himself can do to surpass the work of others that 
is to determine the supremacy. But though individuals 
can manufacture, every individual at the same time can- 
not go to market. This will have to be done to a greater or 
less extent by associations. 

One man can save the city, as one man saved the state, 
and that man will shortly appear and act, as Hiram John- 
son appeared and acted, a man capable, determined, a man 
absolutely honest and unafraid. There is no higher gift, 
there can be no higher praise. 

Hiram Johnson did not stop to choose soft words and 
euphemistic phrases in speaking of the Southern Pacific 
people. He said, "I will drive them out of politics," and 
he did. He did not stop to placate capital or pacify labor; 
he said, "the people shall rule," and for the first time 
since the railway tyranny closed the Interregnum follow- 
ing the vigilance regime, the people of the state of Cali- 
fornia do now rule. Is there not one man in all this city 
able, honest, and with sufficient backbone and courage to 
stand up before the cowardice of capital and the tyranny of 
labor and say ' ' this city shall be free, ' ' and so establish it ? 
Heney, Sullivan, and Phelan did noble work until defeated 
by the unholy alliance of labor and capital at the polls ; is 
there then no other to come forward at this juncture? 

What made London Manchester and Liverpool; what 
made New York Boston and Chicago? Commerce is well 
enough in its way, and should attend manufactures, but 
commerce is fleeting while manufactures are enduring. 

It is a critical moment, this in which we live; it is the 
turning point of our destiny. The potentialities are in- 
calculable, but failure now is failure forever. Not that 
all would be lost, but much of what would be lost could 
never be regained. 

The future is bright; I cannot otherwise regard it. A 
clean city, purged by fire and reform, is rising upon the 



484 RETROSPECTION 

debris of the past in such proportions of beauty and utility 
as to make it second to no other in America. And brightest 
of all is the vision of moral grandeur to which she may 
aspire when work like that of the reformers, once so 
unique and original, shall become common occurrence. Yet 
San Francisco may write this down in her book. She may 
buy and build, acquire railways and water works, lay out 
civic centres by the score and hold world's fairs by the 
dozen, taxing property up to its full face value for the 
means wherewithal to pay, but she never will reach her full 
measure of prosperity under present labor conditions. 

The slumbering civilizations of the Pacific are awaken- 
ing. China has awakened. Europe already knows it, and 
English French and German flags fly thick along her 
coast, with now and then a solitary stars and stripes. 
Doubtless the United States will awaken after a three 
thousand years' sleep, rescind the feudalistic expulsion 
laws and open equitable intercourse with China. 

Already Europeans are active there in exploiting 
mines and developing agriculture and manufactures, in 
building houses, railroads, and bridges, in setting up cotton 
and woolen mills, telegraphs and telephones, oil gas and 
iron works, and in transforming these ancients into pro- 
gressives of the latest civilization. Even San Francisco 
may awaken in time, when all the fairs and civic centres 
are finished and paid for; if not let her sleep on forever 
the blissful sleep of ante-auriferous days. 



CHAPTER XXV 

PROGRESSIVE GOVERNMENT 

THE Progressive movement, which so rapidly assumed 
the form and dignity of a political party, aims to 
establish that which is best for the entire people, rich and 
poor alike. It is as far removed from socialism as it is 
from oligarchy. It regards the rights of the poor as equal 
but not superior to the rights of the rich. It aims to 
secure for all who live in this world the best the world can 
give, protection from its ills, participation in its pleasures, 
and security in the enjoyment of its blessings. 

It is a moral no less than a political movement; it is 
what all political movements should be but are not. It 
aims to establish even-handed justice among all men, to 
secure to the working-man a fair share of the fruits of his 
labor, and to the man of money a proper reward for eco- 
nomic thrift and ability. 

Without subversion and without constraint it would 
cleanse politics of its criminalities, society of its shams, 
and bring to the front all that is noble in man and pure 
in woman. 

The Progressive movement is in direct opposition to 
the purpose of the Reactionaries, who would keep things 
as they are, who would leave bad enough alone, who would 
grant privileges to a few which are denied to all, who would 
grant the privileged few immunity from crimes for which 
the many must be punished, who would secure to the priv- 
ileged few all the natural and acquired wealth in the 
world, leaving the rest of humanity to struggle on in pov- 

485 



486 RETROSPECTION 

erty, working for a meagre wage, and denied the conditions 
tending to health, comfort, and happiness. 

Progressive government will regulate labor and capital 
alike. It will prevent iniquitous trusts, monopolies, and 
combinations of capital; it will oppose the tyrannies of 
labor and the use of d} r namite. It will protect capital in 
its rights, and see that labor has its proper wage and a fair 
share of the wealth it creates. 

It is not difficult to determine which of these two forces, 
the force for good or the force for evil, shall ultimately 
prevail. Great is the power of money, great the power of 
dynamite in the hands of evil-minded men, but greater 
still is the power of righteousness, greatest of all is the 
power of the people. 

For while the people live, while liberty and democracy 
live these United States shall never be ruled by any coterie 
or cabal, whether of capital or labor. 

While the people live, while liberty and democracy live 
no railway octopus shall usurp the government, no coterie 
of capitalists shall seize and hold the national resources 
of the nation, or manipulate or control the economic or 
monied interests of the people, no Gompers or Darrow shall 
dominate industry, no monopoly of money shall regulate 
traffic or prices of products, no monopoly of labor shall 
regulate wages or indulge in boycotts and strikes, no dyna- 
miters shall interfere with the employers of labor. 

"While the people live, while liberty and democracy live 
no Juggernaut car of justice, in the name of law and justice, 
while subverting law and justice, shall compel the worship 
of the people, or be allowed to roll over them as a crushing 
superstition. Judges and jailers, legislators and presidents 
are of the people, and are elected by the people not to 
master but to serve them. 

There is no power save the power of God, which is 
superior to the power of the people. 

There is no special merit in wealth; there is no special 
merit in poverty. Each is a disease, as gluttony and 



PROGRESSIVE GOVERNMENT 487 

drunkenness are diseases, as any excess abnormal in a prop- 
erly running community is a disease. Inordinate wealth 
and extreme poverty are both conditions to be deplored, and 
if possible remedied. Both are significant of something 
wrong. As crime so often attends the accumulation of 
great wealth, so poverty without sufficient cause is a crime, 
and should be punished as a crime rather than held up for 
sacred sympathy. 

What is the best government? 

That which produces the best results. 

How about our Anglo-American republicanism? 

Every one must judge for himself. With intelligence, 
education, expansion, wealth, power, and prestige the 
political economist must consider the workings of our insti- 
tutions and the output. He must consider race admixtures 
and transformations, and withal the decline of patriot- 
ism, honesty, and public morality, the tendency to civic 
debauchery, and the rise and rulership of graft and greed. 
He must determine whence arises such abnormities as the 
soul of evil encased in forms of righteousness; such fan- 
tasies of law and justice as the subversion of government 
by classes; the seizure of natural resources by special in- 
terests; the concentration of capital for criminal designs 
against the people; the briberies for special privilege; the 
purchase of place by office-seekers from senators to school- 
teachers; the domination of demagogues in relation to the 
admission of Asiatics; a judiciary transformed by office 
into something sacred and superior to those who elected 
them, and yet of soul so timid and texture so frail as to be 
influenced in their decisions, as they themselves declare, 
by the fear of losing office; the autocrats of economic in- 
dustry who regulate by dynamite, intimidation, and the 
enslavement of labor the destinies of two millions of work- 
ing-men; together with such conditions as enable four ex- 
press companies to thwart the wishes of ninety millions of 
people who want postal package service, and scores of other 
like examples. 



•188 RETROSPECTION 

We have secured the inalienable rights of life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness, in the indulgence of certain 
phases of which we seem to gravitate downward instead 
of upward, raking the sewers for money, and bringing 
forward as our political associates ten millions of black 
Africans and twenty millions of low-grade Europeans to 
whom we have given, without consideration and without 
recompense, what should be the inestimable privilege of 
the franchise, to possess and enjoy, they and their respec- 
tive progenies forever. 

Our civil war, which was a necessity and in one sense 
a blessing was a withering curse in other respects, as from 
its very blessings came the greatest curse that ever fell 
upon a nation, the curse of dishonesty and demoralization. 
Out of success, out of wealth power and prosperity sprang 
up the rank weeds of immorality and high crime. 

European sympathy was mainly for the south, and that 
not from the noblest impulses. To a jealousy approaching 
hatred on the part of Germany was added the Monroe 
doctrine as an impediment to German autocracy in Amer- 
ica. France made preparation beforehand for the dis- 
memberment of the United States by establishing Maxi- 
milian with French soldiers in Mexico, ready to seize upon 
any of the advantages which were soon to follow. While 
England opposed slavery the English aristocracy opposed 
democracy as fatal to their institutions, and the English 
manufacturers were opposed to whatever stopped the sup- 
ply of cotton. 

All through the fierce struggle of '61 to '65 California 
was quiet but intensely loyal, and in the aftermath, during 
the reconstruction period, none were more indignant over 
the base treatment of a fallen foe by the political riff- 
raff of the north, in Congress and out of Congress. Nothing 
in our history more clearly shows the swift evolution of 
high crime at this juncture, and the depth of cowardice 
and brutality into which we had fallen, than our treatment 
of the white men of the south during their attempt to rise 



PROGRESSIVE GOVERNMENT 489 

and regain a footing in the commonwealth. It was a fall 
from which we were destined never to rise the same. The 
curse we intended for others fell upon us, and the effects 
of it can never be wholly removed. 

But we will do what we can ; we will hope on, and never 
cease our efforts for the cleansing of our commonwealth 
and the betterment of the race. 

It is not always the diseased member that dies first, it 
may be cut off or cured. The most hopeless condition for 
a person or a community is while maintaining a fair outside 
to harbor disease within without recognizing it or attempt- 
ing a cure. It was not by any means the American people 
fallen into decadence, but cliques and evil-minded individ- 
uals, men greedy of place and power and money, women 
greedy of display and social supremacy, that wrought the 
greatest evils. 

Efforts were made to stem the tide, but health wealth 
and progress all became infected with the disease. But 
still the people fought on until their soul's desire was 
voiced by our chief magistrate at Washington. That turned 
the tide. Hope rose again and they won. All honor to 
them, all shame to the traitors. 

A great moral revolution has swept over the Republic 
during the last decade, beginning with Theodore Roose- 
velt on the Atlantic side, and culminating in the campaign 
of Hiram Johnson, which gave our western coast a clean 
start for something worth living for. 

It was not two parties but two civilizations that stood 
forth in opposition after the civil war, the civilization of 
retrogression and dishonor, of individualism and greed, and 
the civilization of progress, of altruism, and ever higher 
ideals. 

Washington delivered the people from foreign tyranny ; 
Lincoln saved us from secession and slavery ; Roosevelt set 
at work the cleansing of the nation from moral leprosy 
which was surely hastening it on to destruction, 

When out of the east came to our west the message of 



490 RETROSPECTION 

salvation all was silence. No one heard or heeded, all 
were buried in self and sin. Then the President himself 
spoke, and sent us Heney and Burns, who were supported 
by William II. Langdon, and followed by Hiram Johnson, 
and we were saved. 

See what these men have done! May their names be 
everlastingly written in the sky, Theodore Roosevelt, Hiram 
Johnson, Francis J. Heney, James D. Phelan, Mat I. 
Sullivan. 

Hiram Johnson saved the state as Francis J. Heney had 
saved the city, and as Theodore Roosevelt had saved 
Christendom. It was one of the most remarkable political 
crusades in history, the several campaigns of Hiram John- 
son throughout the state resulting in the complete steriliza- 
tion of public sentiment in regard to high crime, sentiments 
hitherto saturated with the iniquities taught by the methods 
and morals of corporate capital. 

Then when came the change, so long delayed, so be- 
wilderingly radiant and complete in the transformation, 
we could scarcely realize it. 

We could scarcely realize that the people were in good 
truth free, that the octopus was dead, that California had 
an honest governor, and faithful legislators, that San 
Francisco had an honest mayor and faithful supervisors, 
that laws were made which should establish forever a 
glorious reign of righteousness. But when we saw the 
high-crime men of money haul down their filthy bunting, 
those who to spite good men had put in office Eugene 
Schmitz, his satellites and successors, and had sickened over 
their work ; when we saw the journals that had sold them- 
selves and the city come crawling back into place we knew 
that indeed the change had been effected. 

It was like the awakening to health and happiness after 
a long and troubled sleep, California was redeemed, rescued 
from sin and its consequences. The Dark Age of Graft 
was ended and a new Interregnum of crime was begun. 
There yet remained blocking the way to unbounded pros- 



PROGRESSIVE GOVERNMENT 491 

perity only the two incubi, the labor trust and the exclu- 
sion of the Chinese. So long as these should remain, good 
government were futile and the Panama canal a farce. 

Yet the banker and close communion capitalist of San 
Francisco, though glad to be relieved on any terms from 
a government by labor leaders like Schmitz and McCarthy, 
such as they had inaugurated, still displayed their rancor 
and the quality of their patriotism by refusing to purchase 
the city railroad bonds, which at the liberal rate of four and 
a half per cent, interest, and with the substantial improve- 
ments going forward offered every inducement for invest- 
ment. But the old Adam, and the primary principle of 
their lives, self before all, yet remained. 

Without any laws or regulations to guide him, the new 
mayor, Mr. Rolph, of his own accord adopted so far as 
practicable the commission form of government, which im- 
plies that office-holders are employes of the people, who are 
to conduct the affairs of the municipality as an intelligent 
and thrifty merchant or manufacturer would conduct his 
own business. 

If with a good form of government and the strength 
withal to enforce it; if for ourselves our families and suc- 
cessors we do not prefer to breathe the pure air of decency 
and morality to the foul malaria of political cesspools, then 
with all our riches we are the poorest of humanity, with all 
our strength we are the weakest, with all our learning we 
are the most unwise. 

To Hamilton and Jefferson the ideals of 1776 seemed 
sound and practicable, and were so if the conditions as 
tacitly implied had been maintained. These related to a 
population chiefly of Anglo-Saxon colonists, and not to an 
influx of low-grade aliens and a horde of emancipated 
African slaves. 

It were well indeed for us to pause at this juncture 
and indulge in a little self-analysis, and see how far short 
we come to our professions, especially in regard to pure 
patriotism and clean morality. Universal suffrage may 



492 RETROSPECTION 

be carried so far as to become more despotic than pure 
despotism. Yet it can scarcely be carried farther than it 
now is with us. 

Good government ideals of to-day imply, in whole or 
in part, men only of known ability and integrity for 
office; the application of the initiative, referendum, and 
recall, and a commission of reliable men to act on busi- 
ness principles; no economic coercion, whether by capital 
or labor; municipal ownership of public utilities; fran- 
chises granted for not longer than twenty years and sub- 
ject to revocation and purchase after five years; election 
of the United States senators by direct vote of the people ; 
employers' liability; conservation of national resources; 
able and honest judges; efficient courts of justice; prompt 
and effective criminal procedure. 

If we are ever to reach that standard of excellence to 
wli it*h every progressive commonwealth aspires we must 
as fast as practicable raise the standard of suffrage, for 
we cannot expect pure flowing water from foul sources. 
We must punish promptly and alike high crime and low 
crime, the rich and the poor, else it were better to abolish 
courts. The two great economic forces, capital and labor, 
must be held in subjection by the people and not be per- 
mitted to assume the functions or usurp the prerogative 
of government. 

Conditions social, political, and industrial throughout 
the United States have changed during the last two dec- 
ades. Whether on the whole these changes have been for 
the better or for the worse depends upon the individual 
ideals and the point of view. Doubtless all will agree 
that some changes have been for the better and some for 
the worse, though as to which are for the better and 
which are for the worse all will not agree. All will agree 
that steam and electricity, attended by numberless dis- 
coveries and inventions, have wrought out many benefits 
to mankind. All will not agree that increase in popula- 
tion compensates for its deterioration in quality; that in- 



PROGRESSIVE GOVERNMENT 493 

crease in wealth compensates for laxity in morals, and 
other like questions. 

But the greatest of all changes appears in that over- 
throw of equal rights, that ethical abortion now openly- 
supported if not actually avowed, that the operations of 
the law are not or should not be the same for the rich 
man and the poor man, that the rich should not be pun- 
ished for the same crimes for which the poor must suffer. 
That this monstrous doctrine, so vile, so unjust, so un- 
American could find advocates among the so-called re- 
spectable rich men, shows more than anything else how 
deep the degradation into which the greed for gold has 
plunged a certain class of our people. 

And here the questions arise, not questions of the 
alarmist but of the plain practical man of common sense, 
when will the limit be reached, and what will be the out- 
come of this heaping up of wealth, with this startling 
uplift of the human mind and human methods? The 
United States is the richest nation in the world to-day, 
the richest nation and the most enlightened, and the most 
rapidly advancing in educational and industrial develop- 
ment. Every twenty or thirty years our wealth doubles, 
and every twenty or thirty years our iniquities double. 
To all this there is a limit, for nations like individuals are 
born and die. The years are passing swiftly, but swifter 
still rushes forward our destiny. Education and religion, 
of momentous import in their way, do not seem to have 
the power to save us from ourselves, for with the elabora- 
tion of outward forms we do not seem to improve in 
moral integrity. Can it be possible that we have already 
reached the zenith in our marvellous flight and that we 
are now on the downward grade? 

One thing is sure, never yet was a nation enduringly 
erected on a foundation of fraud and injustice. If you 
build into your walls dishonesty, bribery, immorality, and 
all those kindred vices which attend the rapid accumula- 
tion of wealth and power in the hands of individuals, the 



494 RETROSPECTION 

edifice is sure to fall. -Rome was a thousand years old 
when her decadence set in. We are not yet two hundred; 
yet in these, the days of our youth, we were but lately on as 
broad a road to perdition as any ever Rome or Carthage 
travelled. 

Why, and how? In this way. With our emancipation 
from some of the superstitions of our forefathers we have 
thrown off too many of their virtues which carry with 
them the fundamental principles of an enduring common- 
wealth. We openly avow our preference for prosperity to 
morality, for good business to good principles. Justice is 
a by-word; our courts of law trick-machines for the clear- 
ing of criminals; the spirit of the law made subservient 
to the letter of the law. We prefer in office bad men to 
good men, for when bad men rule, men open to bribery 
and winking at our short-comings, we fancy we can make 
more money. That is the truth, and it shows up pretty 
well the quality of our new individualism. 

Meanwhile, the influential men of business fancied that 
they were making business when in reality they were only 
debauching business, that they were safe-guarding prop- 
erty when they were making property less secure by per- 
mitting fraud to act as one of its trustees. 

It is a great advance towards purity in politics when 
the government which has been taken from the people by 
special interests is restored to the people by the initiative 
and referendum. During the past forty years representa- 
tive government in many places has been to a great extent 
a farce and a fraud. The people, whose right alone it is 
to choose the men to make and execute the laws for them, 
were powerless because of boss rule and machine politics. 

There are a few men left, thank God, let us hope 
enough of them to resalt this rotting earth, who are in- 
herently honest, who are true men because they cannot 
help it; who prefer cleanliness to filth, moral purity to 
vice, because fresh pure air is to them pleasanter than the 
effluvium of the slums ; who love right because it is right, 



PROGRESSIVE GOVERNMENT 495 

and have a sneaking kindness for their country because 
they are made that way and cannot change. 

Such a man is Hiram Johnson; such a man he has 
proved himself to be; such a man he will always be for 
to be otherwise will not be himself. 

What did it the maker of men only knows. It was not 
heredity ; it was not environment, that is to say, so far as 
eyes can see; it was simply kismet. 

Be this as it may, he is as he is, and it were wise in us 
to make the most of him while we may. 

He was born in Sacramento and brought up a lawyer, 
neither of which circumstances in itself would make one 
good or great. That he is a good man his whole life 
shows ; that he is a strong man his battles with high crime 
prove ; that he is a man firm in the right and of enduring 
purpose, the use he makes of his victory over the octopus 
gives us assurance. 

It is well to know a good man when we meet him. 
Washington was one, and Lincoln, and Roosevelt. In like 
manner by his fruits we are to know that Hiram Johnson 
is one. At this writing we feel very sure that as long as 
he is governor California will have a good government. 

With the new governor Hiram Johnson gave the state 
a reformed legislature, which at its first session passed 
some hundreds of laws which forever place a return to 
former conditions beyond the power of corrupt politicians 
to accomplish. 

No one ever did more effective work, both before and 
after his election, than Mr. Johnson has done. Ten thou- 
sand united citizens of San Francisco in 1856 delivered 
the city from political corruption and misrule; Hiram 
Johnson in 1910, unaided and alone, delivered the state 
from the grasp of a money power which had held it as in 
a vise for a period of two score years. 

It was a wonderful achievement, one man and his 
motor, one man with one heart, one mind, one tongue, 
traversing the state from side to side, from end to end. 



496 RETROSPECTION 

many trips, each trip a thousand miles or more, one man 
alone by the indomitable force of his will declaring that 
these things shall be, sounding the death knell of tyranny, 
proclaiming peace and good will, calling upon all the 
people to rise and be free. One man alone, I say, and 
with none too plethoric a pocket-book, opposing a huge 
merciless machine with thousands of men to work it and 
hundreds of millions of money behind it. And the one 
man wins because he is a man, and because he is right. 

Of this political campaign, one of the most remarkable 
achievements of the kind by a single individual, unaided 
and alone, whirled from place to place in his automobile, 
standing in it while talking to the people as to friends 
and brothers, pleading with them to be true to themselves, 
true to their country and throw off the hateful bonds of 
iniquity which they had so slavishly worn for forty years, 
achieved along lines of purity and principle alone, he 
says. "I really thought, when I began, that it was simply 
a case of closing up my office long enough to take my beat- 
ing and then going back to work with the consciousness 
of a duty done. It wasn't until I had gone out in the 
automobile and got out among the people, that I realized 
how widely the knowledge of conditions had spread, and 
how eager the people were for a release from the domina- 
tion of corrupt politicians and corporations. Then I real- 
ized that I really had a chance to win, that the big oppor- 
tunity to try to make things better, of which I had 
dreamed, was going to be mine. That was what put heart 
into the fight and carried us through successfully." 

Hiram Johnson came after Roosevelt as Christ came 
after John the Baptist; Roosevelt preached repentance, 
Johnson enforced it. Roosevelt opened the eyes of the 
blind to a sense of civic wrong, Johnson entered the arena 
and compelled righteousness. The dynamic force native 
to Theodore Roosevelt fired the dynamic force latent in 
Hiram Johnson, though neither of them knew it at the 
time and may not know it now. 



PROGRESSIVE GOVERNMENT 497 

And as for Roosevelt, whatever else may be said of him, 
his character and qualities, he must ever be regarded as 
one of the world's great reformers, as one of the world's 
greatest men. 

A conviction of sin is the first step toward repentance, 
and Roosevelt has convinced the world of sin, of that 
gravest of social and political crimes, the robbery of one's 
country. 

Kings of the craft pretend to think lightly of bribery 
as a penal offense, at least until they are caught. All the 
same they are shy at the approach of the constable. The 
king bribes, the king can do no wrong, the conscience of 
the small fry and large both know well enough that 
bribery is buying stolen goods, goods the buyer knows to 
have been stolen. They know that the franchise they 
buy is public property, and that the proceeds from it 
should go into the public treasury. He who buys it is a 
thief, a felon; he buys what belongs to all the people, 
obtains a valuable property for less than it is worth, 
cheats his neighbor, and debauches public officials. 

It is safe to say, if we except Washington and Lincoln, 
that Theodore Roosevelt has done more and better for the 
American people than any other president; it is safe to 
say, without excepting any one, that he has done more 
to awaken the public conscience, to arrest the reign of 
crime, to overthrow iniquitous trusts and monopolies and 
to establish the people in their rights and privileges than 
any one who has ever lived. 

A curb has been placed upon evils that were rushing 
the republic on to ruin, the dissipation of our natural re- 
sources, the overpowering influence of industrial monop- 
olies, and the promotion of special interests to the injury 
of others. Three hundred millions of acres of public do- 
main have been snatched from the hands of the spoilers, 
and a limitation has been placed upon the rapacity of 
corporate greed and defiance of federal authority. 

It was a singular combination of men and circum- 



498 RETROSPECTION 

stances that brought salvation to San Francisco in 1907, 
and but for which the city might have gone on to ruin. 

To begin with, Theodore Roosevelt discovered Francis 
J. Heney, his ability and fidelity in those difficult land 
cases in Oregon, of which I have elsewhere spoken, and 
permitted him to go to the relief of the stricken city by 
the Golden Gate. Heney viewed the situation and prophe- 
sied success provided he could have with him William J. 
Burns, the most skilful detective outside of romance. 
Money was required, and forth came Rudolph Spreckels; 
and when Heney was shot in court Hiram Johnson and 
Mat I. Sullivan appeared and carried forward to comple- 
tion his cases, with no other compensation than the con- 
sciousness of having performed a sacred duty to the best 
of their ability. 

Certain strong men in Los Angeles about this time be- 
came interested in good government. A non-partisan city 
central committee was formed under the auspices of Meyer 
Lisner, E. T. Earl, John R. Haynes, Edward Dickson, 
Ilarley Brundage, and others, which soon gave to their 
city a clean government. They then attempted state re- 
form, joining Johnson in his work, and were no less suc- 
cessful. Thus California was saved. 

The legislature following Governor Johnson's election 
was composed wholly of free men, of men not bound by 
any special interests, the first absolutely free California 
legislature convened within a period of forty years. 

Governor Johnson made the state's interests his busi- 
ness and worked out public problems as one's personal 
affairs. He studied the character and capabilities of every 
appointee to office, basing his choice upon the merits of 
the man and not upon the probability of his influence in se- 
curing his own reelection. 

Honest himself upon instinct and abhorring rascality 
in every form, he was quick in detecting fraud, in whatso- 
ever guise it appeared before him. Claims against the 
state which excited his suspicions he would not allow to be 



PROGRESSIVE GOVERNMENT 499 

paid, but told the claimants to sue the state, and if their 
demands were just they would recover, if not the fraud 
that would appear would lead to the detection of other 
fraud, so that the wrong-doers dare not bring suit. It was 
a trial not exactly by combat, but along commercial lines 
leading to the penitentiary. 

Governor Johnson signed 753 bills during the first ses- 
sion of his legislature, the whole number submitted to 
him and upon which he had to pass being little less than 
1000, work which would have occupied the average court 
of justice for five years. 

After signing the last of the legislative bills he took 
a week's rest and then proceeded with his routine of duties. 

To magnify the importance of their duties, the heavy 
responsibility resting upon them, the necessity of long 
contemplative study over every case, certain judges talked 
of the wearing upon their poor brains and nerves of their 
arduous labors, and asked for the appointment of addi- 
tional judges, which if made would tend only to increase 
their inanity and idleness. Any shop-keeper conducting 
his business in such a fashion would be sure of bankruptcy. 

Governor Johnson refused all such applications, telling 
the judges they would better go to work, setting the ex- 
ample himself by devoting more time each day to the 
public weal than ever he had given his personal affairs, 
or than these judges would give in a week, which on an 
average was not more than three hours a day for five days. 

Said Roosevelt in an address to 12,000 San Franciscans : 

"I most heartily congratulate California on its vigor- 
ous new birth in the field of political and social life. I 
congratulate you on the work your governor and legisla- 
ture have done and are now doing. It is not a work for 
your state alone, for the whole country receives an im- 
pulse toward sounder thinking and higher living when 
any governor and any legislature translate professions into 
practice, as has been done at Sacramento under the lead 
of Governor Johnson." 



500 RETROSPECTION 

And thus Johnson of Roosevelt and the California 
legislature : 

"Much we owe in common with other states, but we 
in California especially owe to him that quickening of the 
public conscience, that virility, that manhood in citizen- 
ship, that has enabled us to meet and conquer the forces 
of corruption in this great state of California. As he 
declared in a classic message for common opportunity and 
common honesty, so California, with his honest example 
to guide it, went forward to the state's regeneration. 

"The California legislature has just closed a session 
fraught with greater significance than any of its predeces- 
sors. To-night the men sit on this platform who have 
wrought a political revolution. I want to say to all you 
people here that you owe to the 120 men who sat in that 
legislature a debt you never can pay. For they won for 
you and your children and your children's children the 
right to perpetuate government of the people in the state 
of California." 

Chosen United States senator when Johnson came into 
office, John D. Works at once made his mark at Wash- 
ington as an able, high-minded statesman and a pure 
progressive. Speaking of his election he says: 

"Shortly after the vote was taken in the legislature, 
Governor Johnson came into my room at the hotel, his 
face beaming with satisfaction and pleasure. He sat down 
and said to me, 'Isn't it a glorious thing that a man can 
be elected to the United States senate in the state of Cali- 
fornia without doing anything that can be criticised, or 
spending a quarter of a dollar in securing his elec- 
tion?' " 

After four years of baffled justice in the courts, at the 
cost of thousands to the state and millions to themselves, 
with all the while visions of cropped hair and stripes and 
bars, which indeed would have been yet more threaten- 
ing but for their friends of the upper benches, Patrick 
Calhoun, Tirey L. Ford, and others, were ordered dis- 



PROGRESSIVE GOVERNMENT 501 

charged by the appellate court, the lower courts and the 
prosecution after their long and faithful efforts being 
stigmatized for failure owing to the opposition of those 
who thus insulted them. 

The wonder is not that so few of the arch-offenders 
were sent to prison, but that so much was accomplished 
in the face of such strong opposition. Nests of iniquity 
were brought to light, and exposed, and crime intimidated, 
but with the millions of money behind it all, money 
poured out like water to save its owners from prison, wit- 
nesses bribed and sent away, their dwellings dynamited, 
the champion of the people shot down in open court, news- 
papers filled with lies and scurrility, a non-prosecuting 
attorney chosen from the more facile of the profession, 
and a majority of the upper judges clearly on the side of 
the criminals, — in the face of all this a masterly four- 
years ' fight was an achievement of which the people and 
the prosecution need never be ashamed. 

A source of never-ending interest to Detective Burns 
was Abraham Ruef, sharp as steel and yet weak enough 
at times. Ruef fancied himself a good fellow, kind and 
liberal, as he could well afford to be considering the large 
amounts in which he dealt and the ease of getting them. 
The sums given in his confession were, — from the United 
Railways, $200,000, from Parkside, $15,000, Gas Co., $20,- 
000, Fight trust, $50,000, Home Telephone Company, 
$125,000, Pacific States Telephone Co., $75,000 ; also from 
prostitution houses and other places, other like amounts, 
and the alleged promise of a million out of the Tevis bay 
cities scheme, supposed to be working for ten millions 
from San Francisco. 

1 'He couldn't do anything straight," Burns used to 
say. ''Scheming was as natural to him as breathing, the 
odium of treachery never troubled him, though he did Bay 
between sobs, of which he had always plenty, 'I hate like 
hell to betray Ford; he has been just like a brother to me. ' 

"His greed was unequalled, his cowardice was the limit, 
17 



502 RETROSPECTION 

his vanity beyond belief. Each time I saw Ruef there was 
some new quibble; no promise or contract bound him." 

Frustrated in his endeavors by corrupt judges and the 
money of corrupt citizens Heney at length offered him- 
self as candidate for district attorney, pledged to enforce 
the law, but failed to be elected. Capital and labor seemed 
to prefer a district attorney said to be pledged not to en- 
force the Law, and thus the good people of the city showed 
their gratitude for the brave efforts of those who had 
wrought for them inestimable benefits. 

Combined labor and capital managed to out-number 
the 26,000 votes of good men and hence the disgrace. 

It is as easy to have good government as bad govern- 
ment; as easy to get along honestly laying bricks as to 
live on the proceeds of burglary. It is as easy to be clean 
and healthy as to be forever wallowing in the filth of 
immorality. To lift ourselves out of a foul environment 
we must govern ourselves better, drive railways, corporate 
capital, and labor impositions out of politics, and compel 
our courts to deal out justice promptly, without quibbling, 
to rich and poor alike. We must be honest and decently 
moral; free and without hypocrisy, so that we may truth- 
fully register ourselves among the nations of the Great 
Unafraid. 

Let us not be discouraged. Progressive effort has ac- 
complished much. It has broken down bossism and opened 
the door for actual self-government. It has broken down 
monopolies, and subordinated trusts. It has warned labor 
against violence and capital against tyranny. It has 
aroused the national conscience, bringing good men to their 
feet, ready to do their duty. It has revived the sentiment 
of purity, enlivened the spirit of liberty, and has brought 
hope to the despondent. And none too soon. For as sure 
as ever Rome lived and died, this Republic was on the 
broad road to destruction. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

GLORIA IN EXCELSIS 

WHILE engaged on this Retrospection, and some 
time before its completion, I saw gradually over- 
spreading the Republic, especially along its western bor- 
der, a moral revolution. I saw with deepest satisfaction 
the work begun by Theodore Roosevelt for the ameliora- 
tion of the world, and continued by Hiram Johnson for 
the more especial benefit of my own beloved California 
and the Pacific seaboard, bearing fruit, their noble efforts 
crowned with success. 

Not that the work is done; it is only the beginning; 
but enough has been accomplished to satisfy me that for 
the present at all events the American people will not be 
content to return to the days of dishonesty and pluto- 
cratic rule. 

While the graft bribers were fighting in the courts, 
and the railway and government were running hand in 
hand along the same track, and our delectable mayor was 
bringing a blush to the face of those yet capable of feeling 
shame by reason of his empty head and blatant tongue, 
there were certain worthy citizens who had been long 
studying the situation, and were now forging the keys for 
our deliverance. 

So there is yet hope for the Republic. Though the 
days of our years are numbered we may still see several 
to-morrows, for the people wake from their slumbers, 
sometimes, and take a look around. 

The people; though we are not what our forefathers 
had hoped for us ere this; though in some respects we are 

503 



504 RETROSPECTION 

retrograding instead of advancing, gradually the vital 
problems of our progress are undergoing solution, and 
time is still given us in which we may learn to be wise. 

The founders of the Republic were selections from the 
best strains in Europe, that is to say Anglo-Saxon and 
Teutonic. So long as immigration continued along original 
lines all went well, but with the coming of the Latin ele- 
ment and the Slav the quality of population diminished 
as the quantity increased. 

During the last half century the personnel of this 
confederation of states has not improved. There may be 
more intelligence but there is less integrity. There has 
been a falling off in patriotism, in self-sacrifice, or any 
form of unselfish devotion to the well-being of the people; 
there is less of it proportionately than before the incoming 
of so many strangers ignorant of our institutions and in- 
different to our traditions. 

What should we expect from ten millions of freed 
African slaves; twenty millions of low-grade Europeans; 
thirty millions of inter-mixtures, upon whose dull ears the 
fourth of July fire-crackers sound every day fainter? 
Some remnants of the original stock with still a ring of 
the true metal in them are present, notwithstanding women 
who want to do the work of men, leaders of labor who 
want to rule, money-made statesmen with their political 
henchmen, and the coteries of high and low crime with 
their attendant law-courts and prisons. 

This is what is left over from the New England 
colonies and the Virginia country, with the refuse from 
Europe, Asia, and Africa thrown in, all stewed into a 
sometime unsavory mess by the united infelicities of cap- 
ital and labor. 

It was scarcely the best of material for the making of 
a great nation, scarcely as high grade as might have been 
had the original proprietors been less eager to secure 
settlers and create wealth. But notwithstanding the many 
debasing intermixtures made in our population there is a 



GLORIA IN EXCELSIS 505 

hope that through the scrubbing of schools and the pal- 
pable necessity of self-protection the Republic may 
rise again into an atmosphere of honesty and morality, 
without which no nation can prosper. 

If the Anglo-American element can keep control of 
affairs for a century or two longer, holding in abeyance 
the Celt, the Slav, the Latin, the Afric, and the Asiatic, 
meanwhile shutting out the further influx of low-grade 
aliens from every quarter, there may yet be hope for im- 
provement, though we should be unable wholly to regain 
what has been lost. 

We have had no time as yet to consider either anarchy 
or oligarchies, this greatest of republics, with its money- 
lords, and labor-lords, and high honorable lords grafter. 
"Wherefore may we welcome with joy the scintillating light 
appearing now and then among the law-makers and their 
staunch supporters, which shows that the republican corpse 
is not quite ready for burial. 

A glorious light, star of the east ascendant, direct 
primary, referendum, and recall, with municipal govern- 
ment by a commission which places the responsibility upon 
men supposed to rule upon business principles, without 
graft, or bribery, or toll from brothels, or from building 
contracts, or from sales of city franchises to grasping cor- 
porations, the proceeds to be divided among the pilferers. 
A railroad commission bill is an important step toward the 
control of corporations and public utilities, then there are 
the presidential preference primary, the election of sena- 
tors by popular vote, and other important measures before 
the people. 

The direct primary election; bossism does not like it, 
does not like the nomination of candidates by ail the voters 
at a primary election instead of by delegates to a conven- 
tion, or by caucus of evil-minded men with but few if any 
honest citizens present. 

This for the first application to clear away the outer 
obstructions. 



506 RETROSPECTION 

Next the referendum, the power to require laws passed 
by a legislative body to be ratified by the voters before 
becoming operative whenever such ratification is demanded 
by a certain percentage of the voters. 

Obviously bad for the bribers. 

Lastly, the recall, the power to remove the holder of 
any elective office and put in his place another. 

Ah! there is the rub. This does not at all suit high 
crime, special interests, or wealthy corporations. What! 
call them in just as we get properly fixed, a law-maker 
who will follow our instructions, or a governor of easy 
integrity who will look at things the right way, or a 
supreme court who will decide a case for us before hearing 
it, or tell us in advance how to bring a suit or conduct a 
defense along labyrinthine ways bordered by accommo- 
dating technicalities so as to give us what we want, and 
always according to law, strictly according to law, for law 
is the best friend of bright knavish fellows who know how 
to use it. 

What! call him in, that district attorney whose soul 
we bought, placing him in office pledged to our interests, 
pledged to dismiss all suits liable to send us to prison, 
after so much ctynamiting and spiriting away of witnesses, 
sending whole families to Europe and supporting them 
there at heavy expense while all these criminal prosecu- 
tions are going on against us? 

What! call down the mayor just after we have paid 
him for a franchise, paid him money which he pocketed 
and which should have gone to the city, and that before 
he has rendered us the promised equivalent? It is a crime 
thus to steal from us when he should steal only from the 
city. 

Pity the gentlemen of the road, these poor knights of 
the highway, but congratulate the people, who begin to 
breathe more freely having in sight an interregnum of 
crime if not a utopia or a millennium. 

It was at first the general impression that the recall 



GLORIA IN EXCELSIS 507 

should not apply to judges, but the continued turning loose 
of criminals by the upper courts as fast as the superior 
judges convicted them, the prolonging of litigation by 
raising innumerable technicalities and the granting of 
new trials, all at useless and enormous cost to the tax- 
payers, soon convinced the legislature and the people that 
nowhere was the arm of justice more needed to apply 
than to the high court of justice itself. 

Let us thank God and take courage that lost apparently 
in bossism and avarice there were still true men enough 
left to save the country on whom fell this inspiration of 
reform as from the skies. So palpable were the advan- 
tages of the recall that throughout the United States the 
measure was generally received with favor, except as to 
the recall of judges, where a difference of opinion arose, 
the legal profession being largely against it. 

Owing to direct legislation laws Oregon has become one 
of the most progressive states in the union, and has de- 
veloped one of the best of governments. It is as near 
true and intelligent republicanism as may be found any- 
where. 

Through the initiative Oregon obtained the direct 
primary, local option, election of the people's choice for 
United States senator, local self-government for cities, a 
recall that applies to judges as well as other elective offi- 
cials, a gross-earnings tax on sleeping car, refrigerator, 
and oil car companies, a new practice act, an employers' 
liability act, regulation of taxes by counties, and a three- 
fourths verdict in civil cases. 

Through the same power Oregon has abolished the poll- 
tax and extended the provisions of the direct primary law 
in a way that enables her voters to express their preference 
for president of the United States. Of the twenty-five 
initiative measures rejected by the voters seven provided 
for the creation of additional counties, and three were 
amendments granting the ballot to women. The other 
fifteen included one providing for a state magazine, two 



508 RETROSPECTION 

for extra taxes to support unnecessary normal schools, and 
one for an unnecessary state commission. 

The worn out argument of the profession that judges 
should not be placed in a position which might subject 
them to intimidation on the part of the people loses its 
force as applied to the judiciary of California, past and 
present. No viler men ever lived than some who have sat 
on the supreme bench of California, one of whom was 
seized, imprisoned, tried, and condemned by the people, 
lie would have been hanged if the victim of his bowie 
knife had died. 

It is a noticeable fact that officers of the law, including 
judges, are quite as ready to break the law as are laymen, 
whereupon the officer of the law calls in the law to protect 
him against the penalty for breaking the law. It is a fine 
machine, the law, and in the hands of a skilled chauffeur 
works equally well, or ill, either way, forward or back- 
ward. 

The late supreme court of California had acquired a 
bad habit of throwing back upon society upon the silliest 
of technicalities every rich criminal brought before it. 
Nothing could have been more wicked or unwarranted 
than the discharge from prison of Schmitz and Ruef after 
fair and clear conviction supplemented by confession. And 
when Ruef after further trial and conviction was brought 
before this same tribunal another discharge was almost 
certain. 

The people saw it all plainly enough. As elsewhere 
explained Schmitz and the labor leaders smiled to them- 
selves; high crime was delighted. Behold the majesty of 
the law! they cried. Touch not its sacred robes. But 
certain of the lords high chancellor of majestic law itself 
were caught tripping. Evidently they had not themselves 
that profound regard for the letter of the law which they 
wished to impress upon others. In extenuation the court 
put forth the plea that the irregularity of which it was 
guilty had been practised by them for a score of years, 



GLORIA IN EXCELSIS 509 

the illegality thereby becoming good law and properly 
established as precedent! 

The legislature was then in session, and before it for 
discussion was the question of the recall of judges. The 
newly elected United States senator, John D. Works, some 
time lawyer and judge, opposed the measure, calling it 
reform run mad, to the indignation of the legislature and 
the state. But while on his way to Washington, hearing 
of the alleged defection of certain of the supreme judges, 
he telegraphed back that, if true, those judges should be 
impeached. Whereat the friends of recall were somewhat 
mollified. 

The judges took alarm. Here, then, at this junc- 
ture, we may as well as at any other time or place, pause 
and consider whether or not these judges should be in- 
timidated by the legislature and the people, whether any 
judges under any circumstances should be placed in a 
position to be influenced in their opinions by the opinions 
of any legislature or people. Some of these judges were 
vicious men; some of them were as good and pure men 
as were ever elected to office. They were not known to the 
people, their merits and demerits, one from the other, at 
the time of their election as they were known later. Were 
it better in such cases for the people, makers of law and 
judges, to purge the commonwealth of a court like this, 
or suffer its further inflictions of evil for fear of what 
might be considered a too profane handling of the case? 

In this instance the judges sought out their own salva- 
tion, they who had been so conscience-ridden in keeping 
others straight. They quickly reviewed the case of Ruef 
and refused to reopen it. They vehemently denied other 
charges brought against them, some of their supporters 
forswearing themselves in their support. And most un- 
expected of all, when certain old chronic criminals ap- 
peared before the court for writs of habeas corpus they 
were refused, and were ordered back into the custody of 
the sheriff to stand trial for bribing the Ruef-Schmitz 



510 RETROSPECTION 

board of supervisors to pass the overhead trolley fran- 
chise. 

Most of the judges are honest; some are not. We like 
to think them honest until forced to think otherwise. Few 
judges will accept a bribe in money; there are few beyond 
the influence of friendship or of self-interest, for judges 
are human. 

So great a man as Mr. Wickersham makes so small a 
plea as this. "What are judges,' ' he asks, "but impartial 
arbitrators to whom any one of us may be compelled at 
any moment to turn for protection of life or property? 
What will become of that protection if our system of 
government should subject him to the rage of the mob 
when he asserts the supremacy of the law in the face of 
unjust clamor V 

This is a fair specimen of the rant and nonsense the 
ablest jurists indulge in on this subject. Some of the 
judges are impartial arbitrators and others are not. We 
turn to them for protection; sometimes we get it. It is a 
raging mob that drives out the unjust judge, though the 
same persons elected him, and were then well-ordered and 
intelligent citizens. 

We were not surprised that Mr. Taft should oppose 
the recall, as he was once a judge himself, and does not 
easily shed his prejudices, but we scarcely expected him 
to assume the unwarrantable attitude of threatening to 
veto any bill for the admission to statehood of Arizona 
carrying with it the recall of judges. But when a presi- 
dent fills his cabinet with men whom to keep properly 
whitewashed requires the long and expensive efforts of a 
standing committee, what should we expect? 

So many and so peculiar are the vagaries of our Ohio 
president, that we should naturally expect to find him on 
the wrong side of any question. The people of Arizona 
were wholly within their rights, and the president ap- 
peared to go out of his way to gratify a petty spite unbe- 
coming his high position. His opinion, weak and warped 



GLORIA IN EXCELSIS 511 

as is his mind, was of little value where his prejudice rose 
in arms against the clear logic of common sense. His 
frenzied follies and abuse of power are destined to be 
relegated with the corpulent body and senile smile to the 
political nightmares of the past. 

Would it not be as well for us to understand once for 
all if rulership by five of the nine judges of the supreme 
court is a republican form of government, and if the will 
of these five men stands superior to the will of a hundred 
million of American freemen, and if so, and there be no 
other remedy, then either abolish the United States su- 
preme court or abolish the American people. 

One sees riot in recall, another calls it trial by tumult, 
another reform run mad; these are all expressions of 
lawyers prejudiced in favor of the profession, tinctured 
with the fanaticism of the sacredness of law. 

Houston of Tennessee sees in the recall of judges "A 
source of danger to the integrity of the courts, " while 
Littleton of New York in a shout of eloquence assures us 
that "the recall of judges will strike from the splendid 
structure of free government the arch upon which it has 
come to rest with unshaken confidence," — which is rot. 

When Francis J. Heney declared before a large audi- 
ence that within a year he would place certain San Fran- 
cisco officials in prison, the people were pleased to think 
that those who had been robbing them were to be brought 
to an account. In due time criminals were caught and 
convicted. It was then discovered that certain capital- 
ists and influential men of affairs were closely connected 
with the criminals. 

This gave a new aspect to the case. Near the wealthy 
wrongdoers were other wealthy men who did not care to 
see their confreres punished as it would injure business, 
as they said. So gradually this dry rot of dishonesty 
began to infect bankers and corporation managers until a 
coterie of high crime held the city in its grip. 

Presiding over the courts of law were judges, some 



512 RETROSPECTION 

good and some bad, some of sterling integrity, some of 
innate evil-mindedness. The lower courts were nearer the 
people, and the upper courts nearer to high criminality. 
Antagonisms increased until the men of wealth who lived 
on the border of Stygian waters and feasted their friends 
of the upper benches openly denounced all prosecutions 
of wealthy men as injurious to progress, while heartily 
approving of the punishment of the poor, which for ex- 
ample's sake should suffice for rich and poor alike. 

Had there been any doubts about the passage of the 
measure for the recall of judges in California the conduct 
of the supreme court, now thoroughly aroused by fears 
for its own safety, would have set them at rest. It be- 
came clearly apparent that certain of them belonged to 
the railroad and others were notoriously corrupt. The 
result was that all municipal criminals who failed of 
acquittal by means of the usual bullying by lawyers and 
false swearing of witnesses in the lower courts were 
promptly discharged on appeal to the higher tribunals. 

Thus the mayor thief, Schmitz, was set at liberty upon 
a technicality so small and absurd as to bring a smile to 
the wooden face of the jailer who unlocked the door for 
him. 

People saw now with humiliation and regret that the 
time and money spent to bring rich or influential crim- 
inals to justice were thrown away, that as fast as evil- 
doers presented themselves before the court of appeals 
and the supreme court they were turned loose upon the 
community, even though proof, backed by confession, was 
positive. 

Surely here was a case for recall. Here was an example 
of the necessity of the recall for judges. Little wonder 
that judges w r ould if they were able exempt the judiciary 
from the judgment of the people! 

The Mongolians were quick to catch the spirit of the 
time. 

"You hang for that, Ah Chung," wailed Ah Foy, as 



GLORIA IN EXCELSIS 513 

he saw his friend drive his knife into the gentle bosom 
of Ah Li. 

"No, I no hang. I got two tousand dollars. You sabe, 
Chinaman no hab money, he hang; hab money, no hang, 
all same Melican man." 

Thus it was that while all was in train for the dis- 
charge of Ruef, the supreme court was obliged to close 
the door on him, and he slipped back into his long term 
of imprisonment a deeply disappointed man. 

They that take to technicalities shall perish by techni- 
calities. 

This was the case upon application in the supreme 
court in the case of Abraham Ruef convicted of bribery; 
the order granting a rehearing was signed by four judges 
out of seven, but one of the judges after signing left the 
state before the others had signed the order. In extenu- 
ation of its own conscious wrong-doing the court pleads 
precedent; that is, because it has been breaking the law 
systematically for a period of twenty years, ipso facto it is 
law established by precedent. 

The people were greatly incensed. In the absence of 
a law for recall of judges the legislature took steps for 
impeachment, but was finally persuaded to let the matter 
drop upon the prompt revocation of the Ruef order for 
a rehearing. 

This affair had scarcely blown over before this same 
judicial bench found itself in a still more questionable 
attitude before the people. In a suit at Los Angeles rela- 
tive to the irrigation system of Imperial valley in which 
the Southern Pacific railway was interested, among some 
documents offered in evidence a letter was found purport- 
ing to have come direct from the chief attorney of the 
railway and directed to the head of the railway corps of 
attorneys at Los Angeles, in which was the following 
clause : 

"The supreme justices in conversation with me to-day 
all seemed to be of the opinion that this paragraph should 



514 RETROSPECTION 

be amended so as to state* the facts, as required under 
the decision in the case of the Bank of Woodland versus 
Stevens, 144 Cal., page 660, and to have an order made 
reappointing the receiver. It was suggested that if this 
could be done between now and Monday it would be an 
answer to the application." 

Which signified that the attorney for the Southern 
Pacific company was obtaining advice from the supreme 
court before trial as to how a legal difficulty might be 
overcome in a matter yet to be brought before them. 

Of course there were general denials all round. The 
justices swore they had never given such advice. The 
chief attorney swore he had never written such a letter, 
but that a clerk did it. Finally a scapegoat was found 
who acknowledged he had written the letter in a moment 
of mental aberration but that there was no truth in it. 

It was a paltry trick for such mighty potentates to 
play, as if they expected to find people so simple as to 
believe them, whether supreme justice, lawyer, or clerk. 
After that there was little opposition, even among the 
legal lights, to the measure for the recall of judges in 
California. 

The appellate tribunals were high courts of techni- 
calities. None of these men, bribers or bribed, appealed 
for law or justice; their appeals were to the tricks 
and hair-splittings in which these judges seemed to take 
their greatest delight, and in which they assuredly were 
adepts. 

In all this I would not be misunderstood. I am neither 
socialist nor idealist. I have a profound respect for the 
law, — when it is respectable. I obey the law whether or 
not it is respectable; I find it easier to do so. I employ 
lawyers when pinched by the wicked. I have even a son, 
law graduate of Harvard, in full and honorable practice; 
law being such an intricate and mystifying force I find 
it convenient having a lawyer in the family. 

Americans respect the law; they entertain a high re- 



GLORIA IN EXCELSIS 515 

gard for justice, and are impressed with the time-honored 
formalities of civilized courts of justice. He must be a 
bad man indeed who should compel a long-suffering people 
to rise up and thrust him out; no judge in the United 
States need ever fear being unbenched except for sufficient 
cause. 

The profession are governed in their opinion largely by 
policy. To antagonize the judiciary by advocating the 
application of the recall to judges would throw many of 
the ablest lawyers out of business. Hence the argument 
of a judge, or of an attorney, or of a newspaper whose 
proprietor has a case in hearing before the supreme court 
carries but little weight. 

Naturally the lawyer extols the profession by which 
he lives. He extols the judges who decide cases for or 
against him. As the Chinese placate the devil by sounding 
his praises, he extols the American methods and the effi- 
ciency of American courts, asserting their superiority even 
to English courts. There are always some among them, 
however, with courage enough to tell the truth and take 
the consequences. 

Officials of the law courts are obliged to regard them 
as sacred, otherwise some of them might be found exceed- 
ingly profane. There are perhaps no public officials where 
the recall is more needed, none where it will produce a 
more beneficial effect than in its application to the 
judiciary. 

Said Charles Francis Adams, "To hear some people 
denounce the recall of the judiciary one would think 
that our judges were sent direct from heaven and are 
infallible." 

They talk of protecting the judges from the people, 
but what is to protect the people from the judges? The 
judges should be protected against the resentment of a 
misguided populace, but should not the people be pro- 
tected against the resentment of misguided judges? 

As it is possible for the judge to do the greatest harm 



516 RETROSPECTION 

in the shortest time, so the people need protection from 
their judges more than from any other class of officials. 

Without the recall for judges the punishment of high 
crime throughout the United States would be small indeed. 
For awakening the public conscience we thank God and 
Theodore Roosevelt. But millionaire litigants have no 
conscience, and their influence over courts of law and 
supreme judges is often overpowering. 

After all has been said, we have only to look at the 
courts themselves and consider their attitude. Leaving 
out the United States courts, where the appointments are 
for life, no one can deny that the higher elective state 
courts throughout the union during the last half century 
have been largely dominated by capital if not under direct 
influence of corporate graft and greed. 

Whenever justice in the courts of justice miscarries, 
defeated by the letter of the law, the judge, exponent of 
the law and justice, becomes mummified at a time when 
honesty and a clear intellect are most needed. He admits 
his inability to act as a reasonable creature, and pleads 
as an excuse the machine that men have made to hold 
him fast. A truly pitiable object, a person pledged to do 
right but forced to do wrong, sworn to execute justice 
but constrained to acts of injustice. 

And for all the one cry of fanaticism, It is the law, 
the law; behold the car of Juggernaut cometh to crush 
all who trifle with the law! 

Suppose we blot out all laws and precedents, and write 
the book of statutes anew, beginning, Herein are the rules 
of proceedings for securing the ends of justice; in so far 
as any one of them fails in or tends to defeat its purpose 
it is null. Then let the judge come out of his shell and 
determine cases, and if he is incompetent let him be re- 
called and another put in his place. 

The human understanding is rather an unreliable 
quantity. It has a way of failing us when least expected 
and when its support is most needed. Native ability, 



GLORIA IN EXCELSIS 517 

breadth and depth of intellect, profound learning seem 
to make little difference in reaching uniformity or in- 
fallibility. The opinion of the veriest clod is worth as 
much as that of the ablest divine in matters concerning 
which neither can know anything. This is strikingly ap- 
parent in whatever relates to law and law courts, the 
outcome of litigation is proverbially uncertain. The 
ablest lawyer expounding to the learned judge has no 
more assurance as to the result than has the humbler prac- 
titioner before a justice of the peace. 

Why is it that the most profound doctors of jurispru- 
dence who sit on the United States supreme bench so 
seldom agree, all of them, on any one point? That the 
plainly written law is before them, and the brightest legal 
talent present to argue both sides of the question, makes 
no difference. Their minds are differently constructed, 
their understanding is cast in different molds. Were the 
whole bench to sit as jurors through a term of the superior 
court, they would agree in a verdict no oftener than do the' 
blockheads usually picked up about town for that purpose. 

Recognizing these facts we can the better understand 
the strange diversity of opinion regarding the recall of 
judges which has occupied the public mind so much of 
late. 

We are too apt to regard government as an entity out- 
side of us instead of an essence within. The thing at 
Washington is a great bogey to be placated and prayed 
to, if we have need of it, rather than a congregation of 
men not too righteous, not too patriotic, or unselfish, not 
overburdened with honesty or integrity, but just common 
clay like ourselves, too common many of them, politicians 
for the most part who have wormed themselves into office, 
and whose chief concern is, not their country and its needs, 
but themselves, that having tasted power how they may 
keep it, and so struggle on until thrust aside by others 
b'ke them. 

So with regard to law and justice, one is set up as an 



518 RETROSPECTION 

individual entity apart from the other when they are or 
should be correlate forces. 

Every religion claims for its supreme deity an abso- 
lutely just God, not a law-abiding God, nor a God expert 
in splitting hairs or finding effective technicalities. If our 
supreme judges would make good their claim to something 
sacred or exceptional in their desired independence of the 
people, if they would set themselves up as deity let them 
play the part of deity with some show of reason. 

What shall we say of the infallibility of courts or the 
value of high-grade opinions when the ablest statesmen 
so often disagree; when the learned world denounced the 
political doctrines of Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson 
as unsound, misleading, and dangerous; when all New 
England opposed the purchase of Louisiana by Jefferson 
and all America ridiculed the purchase of Alaska by 
Seward. Thus we may know what value to place upon 
Chancellor Day's eulogy of Rockefeller, Governor Penny- 
packer's tribute to Quay, and the high esteem of William 
Cromwell, friend of Taft and Ballinger and Wickersham, 
for E. H. Harriman, declaiming in court, with all due 
soberness, that he moved rightly in a sphere above the 
law applicable to ordinary men! 

What does recall accomplish? It extracts the fangs 
from venomous officials; it leaves political power where 
it belongs, in the hands of the people ; it liberates the land 
from the control of corporations; it puts an end to the 
pretty game of law-made monte, three cards with the 
joker, corporate capital makes the legislature, the legisla- 
ture makes the laws, corporate capital makes the judge, 
the judge construes the law, now where is the joker? 
There is no joker; there is no joke; it all means hard 
cash. 

WTiy such vast display of learned imbecility ? Twenty 
years ago the automobile was a wonderful piece of mechan- 
ism, yet since that time its efficiency and safety has in- 
creased tenfold. Three hundred or three thousand years 



GLORIA IN EXCELSIS 519 

ago laws were set up for the regulation of mankind, ye 
worse than ever to-day an army of lawyers and judges an 
beating the air and shouting nonsense instead of simpl; 
hanging murderers and putting thieves in prison. 

There was once a little boy, a very little boy, he could 
but just walk, who on coming to a thin sheet of note paper 
lying flat on the floor lifted high his foot to step over it. It 
seemed to him three feet high with no way around it. But 
it was only a baby; not at all like a judge who can gen- 
erally manage to step over a sheet of note paper even with 
a law written on it. 

Why this outcry against intimidation? Intimidation is 
one of the essentials of government, it lies at the founda- 
tion of all rule. It has been used ever since the great 
intimidation from Sinai. 

A wise sovereign inherited a bad government in which 
justice was unknown. He chose the best men for judges 
and told them, not that they would be recalled if they did 
not judge promptly and righteously, but that they would 
be hanged. 

In the days of trial by combat a court of law was a court 
of justice, for the winner was the embodiment of positive 
right. Solomon's was a court of justice, Abraham's was 
not long enough in session to determine; if he obeyed the 
voice and killed his son it was a court of law, if he refused 
to do so it was a court of justice. In the English courts, 
in the main justice governs; in American courts, in the 
main, law governs. 

Scarcely was Ruef in prison with only a portion spent 
of the million more or less stolen from the people before 
silly sentimentalists began to talk of his release, "What 
chance of reform had he within prison walls?" Mr. Ruef 
is not the kind that reforms. "He could be more useful 
outside." So might the other prisoners ; why should he, the 
brightest villain of them all, be set at liberty, and not the 
others? Or should we have a general jail delivery? 

So disgusted were all classes and coteries with McCarthy 



520 RETROSPECTION 

that James Rolph, Jr., was elected his successor at the 
primary in 1911, without the trouble of again appearing 
at the general election. Mayor Rolph has the confidence 
of the entire community, there is no one in San Francisco 
more popular, and no one can better reconcile conflicting 
classes or do the city's honors during the exposition. In- 
deed the transformation from darkness to light in scores 
of ways has been bewilderingly sudden and great. Even 
while the standard of morals was changing for the worse, 
standards of men were changing for the better. 

Hiram Johnson possesses this one qualification, besides 
many others, in a remarkable degree, particularly when 
found in the chief magistrate of a great state. A matter of 
vital importance he gets up and attends to himself, instead 
of passing it over to others less interested, or less efficient. 
To overthrow the octopus he travelled and wrote and spoke 
until it was done. In other like important cases he did 
the same. 

Perhaps the greatest single achievement of his adminis- 
tration was the passage of the public utilities bill, by 
which the railroad, steamship, express, telephone, and tele- 
graph companies, and practically all other public utilities 
are put under a commission, which has the absolute power, 
not only of fixing the rates, but of controlling all their 
stock and bond issues, extensions of tracks or lines, and 
any other use or misuse of their properties or franchises. 

In order to have this bill passed, it was necessary to 
amend the state constitution. As usual with him the 
governor made a personal canvass from one end of the 
state to the other, speaking in behalf of this amendment 
and of those providing for the initiative referendum 
and recall, all of which were carried by overwhelming 
majorities. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

SIGNIFICANCE OP THE PANAMA CANAL 

FOUR hundred years ago the isthmus of Darien, or 
Panama, was the pivotal point upon which turned the 
commerce of the world. The camel caravans overland from 
India were discontinued, and the Mediterranean and Zuyder 
Zee lost their supremacy in the oriental traffic with western 
Europe, while the Manila galleons brought across the 
Pacific the rich merchandise of Fair Cathay to Panama, 
until pestilence and the pirates drove them away to 
Acapulco. 

Before the railway was the pathway, three hundred 
years old under the auspices of the Spaniard and his mule, 
three thousand years old for aught we know under the 
aboriginal regime; and as the mule-trail influenced the 
railway, so the railway determined the destiny of the canal. 
They were a unique feature in their day, Panama and the 
mule and the trail. 

The city then was the metropolitan port of the two 
Americas. There was nothing like it elsewhere in the 
world. Into it poured the wealth of the Pacific, of which 
it was the gateway, thence to be transported on mules to 
Portobello or Nombre de Dios and shipped on galleons for 
Spain. Returning, the products of the old world were 
brought and distributed around the Pacific ; so that on the 
streets and in the ware-rooms might always be seen piles 
of goods from Europe, rich stuffs and spices from Asia, 
white and yellow ingots from Peru, cochineal and dye- 
woods from Mexico, pearls from the islands and pelts from 
distant parts. In the plaza was a booth which served as a 

521 



522 RETROSPECTION 

slave market, where Indians and negroes were sold by 
auction. 

The merchants were princes, and the city was the royal 
depot for the Indies. The spoils of the natives passed that 
way. Atahualpa's gold and Iluascar's silver. The plunder 
of pirates often found lodgment there, while the city offered 
constant allurements to freebooters and buccaneers. On 
the trail between these favored ports was ever heard the 
noise of traffic, the jingling bells of the caparisoned mules 
in gay trappings guarded by fusileers, and the shouts of 
vaqueros as they lashed on their beasts, staggering under 
their loads of precious merchandise, gold and silver and 
spices going east, and cloths cotton and leather goods west- 
ward bound. 

On the beach at Panama were strewed bales of silks and 
boxes of tea and lacquered work from Asia, furs from the 
north and fruits from the south, while at Nombre de Dios 
were housed the factory outputs of western Europe and 
eastern America. On the streets and along the roadways 
were structures of various sorts filled with mixed mer- 
chandise, with columns of Potosi silver bars stacked upon 
the floor. 

At anchor on either side of this important pest-hole 
were ships from many ports, on the northern side from 
Europe and the West Indies, and the Atlantic seaboard of 
America, and on the southern side vessels from Pacific 
ports and the Far East. 

A place of romance and blind adventure as well, this 
Isthmus, where were launched reckless fleets on unknown 
seas for unknown realms. For two hundred years Panama 
thus flourished until the Spanish king, partly for the up- 
building of Vera Cruz, as well as by reason of the pirates 
at Panama, ordered the Manila galleons to make Acapulco 
their Pacific port. 

Thus the past is brought before us as we see the mule- 
trails dug away, and in their place a great waterway unit- 
ing the two oceans and filled with mighty ships, vessels of 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PANAMA CANAL 523 

peace and war. laden, some with death-dealing implements, 
some with gay pleasure-seekers, and others with the inter- 
changeable products of civilization. And the question 
comes to us, Are the tinselled glories of the past now to be 
renewed in more enduring form? Is a new world to be 
born in this twentieth century from the New World of the 
sixteenth century? Are we to find in this American 
Netherland real romance in place of ignes fatui, reasonable 
faith instead of dank superstition, and solid substantial 
progress in lieu of inordinate self-seeking and greed? 

For verily the dream of Columbus is at last fulfilled, 
and ships from Europe and the Mediterranean may now 
sail west almost in a straight line direct to the India of 
Marco Polo. 

With any important occurrence affecting the welfare of 
humanity questions naturally arise as to its purpose and 
probable accomplishment. What then does it mean, this 
opening a passage for ships between the two oceans ? Some- 
thing more, surely, than the convenience of vessels and the 
gathering of tolls. 

To him who wills to accomplish, this waterway means 
much. It means much that we can fathom and more that 
we cannot fathom. To see the full significance of this 
work we must adjust our eyes to a new perspective; to 
fathom its meaning we must descend to profounder depths 
than have yet been reached by line and plummet. 

It signifies an enlargement of vision, a new creation, a 
new heaven and a new earth, a new civilization, new arti- 
sans and artists, new poets and philosophers. It means an 
awakening of the economic world, a buckling on of armor 
for achievement that should put to blush the efforts of war- 
riors on bloody battlefields. 

It means if we are wise, introspection and self-analysis, 
taking stock and measurement of our opportunities and 
capabilities, a re-creation and re-adjustment of ourselves 
to meet new conditions. 



524 RETROSPECTION 

Situated in the heart of the tropics, its effect on the 
tropical lands and their people will be pronounced. For 
the tropics, in common with the rest of the world, will be 
controlled by white men, though worked by black and 
yellow labor. 

It will change trade routes, open new pathways and 
establish new and enlarged centres of industrialism. The 
world's traffic, at first from India overland to northern 
Europe, from the Mediterranean out into the ocean along 
the coasts of Africa and Europe, then straight west across 
the Atlantic, across the continent, across the Pacific, where 
equatorial trade winds and other influences hold sway, will 
now converge from every quarter of the two great oceans 
to this waterway, which will thus become a new industrial 
centre round which the world's commerce will revolve. 

It will map the Pacific anew and determine the destinies 
of cities and states. 

It will expand and make practical theoretical science. 

It will discourage war and promote the fraternalism of 
nations. 

As a military asset, guarding both sides of our country, 
it is of the first importance. 

It will double the effectiveness of our navy, and save 
its cost in building useless battle-ships, which are obsolete 
almost before they are finished. 

It will strengthen the Monroe doctrine and make its 
maintenance more necessary than ever. 

As regards education and intellectual development, the 
tendency will be to bring Europe west and establish a new 
civilization upon the shores of the Pacific. 

Its effect on language will be to increase and extend the 
speaking of English, so that English will become more than 
ever the language of commerce and government, if not of 
diplomacy and society. And here as in its ethnic influence 
the tendency will be to extend the power and supremacy of 
English-speaking peoples, as well as of their language, the 
world over. 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PANAMA CANAL 525 

It means a larger America and a smaller world; a 
stronger and wealthier America, and a less potential Europe 
and Africa. It signifies also a taking possession, not politi- 
cally but economically, a taking possession either by our- 
selves or others as we shall elect ; for all around this watery 
amphitheatre are mighty nations in embryo, nations now 
half civilized or a quarter civilized, but with native wealth 
and potentialities illimitable, inconceivable. 

To him who wills nothing and does nothing the Panama 
canal has no significance. 

The economic energy of the world is here liberated, 
but the Panama canal has no significance to him who will 
not respond to its inspirations; to him who will not throw 
off inertia and timidity and go forth to achieve; who will 
not study, and invent, and develop ; who will not work, and 
make, and sell. 

To the city with but meagre manufactures, or which 
for any reason cannot successfully compete with the world 's 
industrial centres, the Panama canal has small significance. 

It is interesting to observe, in glancing over the three 
or four centuries of West Coast history, how all along the 
line the thoughts and efforts were ever present to find or 
make a way through or around the two Americas. And 
what immediately followed were scores of mythical straits 
with corresponding conjectural geography. 

The primary impulse of the Spaniards on finding land 
as they sailed westward was to get through or around it. 
And the more it baffled their efforts as they crept along the 
border to the north and to the south, the more eager wore 
they to overcome or circumvent the obstacle that impeded 
their progress. For if this were India, this low-lying strip 
of jungle-covered sand, peopled by copper-hued creatures 
dwelling in huts and sustaining life by the natural products 
of the unkempt earth, it was not the India they sought ; it 
was not the India of Mandeville and Marco Polo, where 
thousands of cities were scattered over fertile provinces 



526 RETROSPECTION 

fragrant with fruit and spices, and whose palaces with 
pillars and roofs emblazoned in gold glittered beneath the 
sun ; and where were rivers and canals spanned by bridges 
under which the largest ships might sail, and lakes bor- 
dered by gardens and luxurious groves on whose placid 
waters floated pleasure boats and banqueting barges. 

"These are but the outlying islands of Cathay," mused 
the great discoverer as cruising through the Bahamas he 
came upon Cuba, which was Zipangu. He had his bear- 
ings now. All this was Polo's archipelago, and if the larger 
land were not Cathay the Asiatic main could not be far dis- 
tant, and there he should find some strait or passage to 
the more central realms of the Grand Khan, to whom he 
would present his credentials. Later, as he lay ill on the 
deck of his vessel off Colon, so called by Fernando, son and 
companion of Christopher, "Nine days' journey across the 
mountains, " he said, "is Ciguare, and ten days from Cigu- 
are must lie the river Ganges." And so, lost in the mazes 
of mysticism he went down to his death, much befogged as 
to the world he had so aided in bringing to the light of 
others. 

Ardently desired by all interested in New World affairs, 
by the sovereigns and statesmen of Europe as well as by 
the sailors and adventurers to America, the early impres- 
sions of the existence of one or many passage-ways among 
the islands and through the main land to India became so 
strong as to amount to certainty, the unauthenticated tales 
of mariners, romancing about their efforts and successes, 
being easier of credence than plain evidence of what they 
did not wish to be true. Soon all about these waters were 
bewildered sailors bent on investigation. On the coast of 
the tropical mainland in 1499, appeared Alonso de Ojeda, 
in whose company were Juan de la Cosa and Amerigo Ves- 
pucci. These were followed by Lepe and Pinzon, by Rod- 
rigo de Bastidas in 1501, and by Coelho and Solis in 1503 
and 1506 respectively. 

From Cuba came many, Vasco Nunez de Balboa to 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PANAMA CANAL 527 

Darien, Hernan Cortes to Mexico, Francisco Pizarro to 
Panama and Peru. All were for plunder and proselyting ; 
but most of those who came direct from Spain were licensed 
to trade, having in mind also the gorgeous wealth«of Cathay, 
so near and yet so elusive. Indeed, for the first half- 
century following discovery there were few if any voyages 
to America whose object was not, among others, to find a 
waterway to India. 

Meanwhile England was not idle. Following the play 
of northern lights on the western horizon for four or five 
centuries, lapsing into obscurity upon the decline of Scan- 
dinavian discovery, appeared up Labrador way and at the 
St. Lawrence in 1497-98 the Cabots, like the others warm 
on their way to India. 

Said Sebastian: u Understanding by reason of the 
Sphere that if I should saile by way of the Northwest I 
should by a shorter route come into India . . . not 
thinking to finde any other land than that of Cathay, and 
from thence to turne toward India, but after certaine dayes 
I found that the land ranne towards the north, which was 
to mee a great displeasure. ' ' 

Ramusio, to whom he wrote, reports that in latitude 
67° 30' ''Finding still the open Sea without any manner 
of impediment, hee thought verily by that way to have 
passed on still the way to Cathaio, which is in the East, and 
woulde have done it, if the mutinie of the shipmaster and 
marriners had not rebelled." There was no doubt at that 
time in the minds of all that Cabot had reached Asia, or 
later that he had found a strait. 

After the Cabots came the Cortereals, penetrating yet 
farther northward, while Aillon, Verrazano, and Estevan 
Gomez extended the search coastwise to Carolina, and on 
to Florida. It was a passage, rather than a strait, that the 
Cabots and the Cortereals expected to find in the far north, 
as, like Columbus, they fancied themselves already on the 
coast of Asia. 

As exploration progressed, rumors arose on every side 



528 RETROSPECTION 

of waterways westward. Among them one called the strait 
of Anian may justly claim precedence, not only by reason 
of its alleged size and influence, but also for its romance 
and longevity. It is almost incredible of belief at this day, 
but the fact remains that for over two centuries there floated 
through the minds of men, cosmographers, mariners, and 
map-makers, statesmen and scholars, a fancy, or firm con- 
viction in many cases, of the existence of a great waterway 
opening broadly from the Pacific and from the Atlantic, 
banked on cither side by grassy slopes and flowery king- 
doms, with forests intervening, and manifold wonders, and 
through which fleets might pass without hindrance. It 
was situated in about the middle of the continent of North 
America, and extended from sea to sea, say from the St. 
Lawrence to Puget sound, vibrating between the great 
lakes and Hudson bay, and winding about throughout the 
land, deflecting north, sometimes south, as the fancy of 
the narrators might dictate. 

Of this hallucination, and the name, John Cortereal is 
accredited by some the innocent cause; others refer to an 
ancient hypothetical province of Asia, Ania, which province 
was transferred to America and placed beside the strait 
of Anian as the kingdom of Anian. 

* ' An excellent learned man of Portingale, ' ' writes Hak- 
luyt in 1582, "told mee very lately that one Anus Cort- 
ereal, — Anus being a form of Ioao, Ioannes, or John — Cap- 
tayne of the yle of Tercera, about the yeere 1574, which is 
not aboue eight yeeres past, sent a shippe to discouer the 
Northwest passage of America, and that the same shippe 
arriuing on the coast of the saide America, in fiftie eyghte 
degrees of latitude, founde a great entrance, exceeding 
deepe and broade, without all impediment of ice, into which 
they passed aboue twentie leagues, and founde it alwaies 
to trende towarde the South, the lande lying lowe and 
plaine on eyther side; and they perswaded them selues 
verely that there was a way open into the south sea." 

In Divers Voyages is a prefatory note entitled, ' ' A verie 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PANAMA CANAL 529 

late and great probabilitie of a passage by the north-west 
part of America in 58 degrees of northerly latitude. ' ' And 
again Hakluyt says: "There is no doubt but that there is 
a straight and short way open into the West, euen vnto 
Cathay;" adding finally, "And heere, to conclude and shut 
vp this matter, I have hearde my selfe of Merchants of 
credite that haue liued long in Spain, that King Phillip 
hath made a lawe of late that none of his subjects shall 
discouer to Northwardes of fiue and fortie degrees of Amer- 
ica," lest the strait should be found and the other nations 
should profit thereby. 

Thus came upon the world this cosmographical mystery, 
and as there were many mysteries then prevalent in the 
New World, this mystery being in the unknown north was 
called the Northern Mystery. Some claimed that it had 
been brought up from the south, and that it was in fact 
no other than the strait laid down between South America 
and the Asiatic main. 

Imaginary geography being then in vogue, as I have 
explained in an earlier chapter of this volume, all this time 
various straits were put down in various maps, the known 
being supplemented by the imaginary. In Ruysch's map, 
1508, and on Schoner's globe 1520, are open roadsteads on 
either side of the Antilles to Asia. 

Ptolemy, 1530, Ruscelli, 1544, and Ramusio, 1556, have 
a passage round the northern end of the continent. Oron- 
tius Fine, 1531, joins Cathay to northwest America, and be- 
fore the end of the sixteenth century there were no less 
than ten maps of the higher class with Anian strait, and 
one, Munster, 1545, unblushingly bearing the inscription 
"Per hoz fretuiter patet ad Molucas." There was some 
honest authorship in all this, where the evidence seemed 
sufficient, yet there were many wild statements and wilful 
misrepresentations, so that maritime mendacity flourished 
under conditions favorable to endless imaginings and the 
absence of facts which might render detection dangerous. 

One of the first accounts of a voyage through this strait, 



530 RETROSPECTION 

and which will serve as a sample of the many others that 
followed, was by Pedro Menendez, prominent in the an- 
nals of Florida, who wrote, "That in 155-1 he had brought 
from New Spain a man who claimed to have been on a 
French ship, which had sailed four hundred leagues on a 
brazo de mar running inland from Newfoundland toward 
Florida. The ship's crew then landed, and a quarter of a 
league distant found another channel on which they built 
four small vessels, and sailed an additional three hundred 
leagues, to latitude 48°, north of Mexico, near the mines 
of Zacatecas and San Martin, where were large and pros- 
perous settlements. The channel led to the South sea, to- 
ward China and the Moluccas, though it was not followed 
so far." 

"This said streight," writes Martin Frobisher regard- 
ing an inlet in latitude 63° 8' which he claims to have en- 
tered, "is supposed to have passage into the sea of Sur, 
which I leaue unknown as yet. It seemeth that either here, 
or not farre hence, the sea should have more large entrance 
than in other parts within the frozen or temperate zone." 
Later Frobisher speaks soberly of crossing the inlet to the 
east shore, "being the supposed continent of Asia," and 
back to the "supposed firme with America." 

Another note for the map-makers reads as follows : * ' I, 
Thomas Cowles, of Bedmester, in the countie of Somerset, 
Marriner, doe acknowledge that six yeares past, at my 
being at Lisbon, in the kingdome of Portugall, I did heare 
one Martin Chacke, a Portugall of Lisbon, reade a book of 
his owne making, which he had set out six yeares before 
that time, in Print, in the Portugale tongue, declaring that 
the said Martin Chacke had founde, twelve yeares now past, 
a way from the Portugall Indies through a gulf of the New 
found land, which he thought to be in 59 degrees of the 
eleuation of the North Pole. By means that hee being in 
the said Indies with foure other shippes of great burden, 
and he himselfe in a small shippe of fourscore tunnes, was 
driuen from the company of the other foure Shippes with 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PANAMA CANAL 531 

a Westerly winde ; after which hee past alongst by a great 
number of Hands which were in the gulfe of the said New 
found Land. And after hee ouershot the gulfe hee set no 
more sight of any other Land vntill he fell with the North- 
west part of Ireland ; and from thence he tooke his course 
homewards, and by that meanes hee came to Lisbone foure 
or five weekes before the other foure Ship of his company 
that he was separated from ; as before said. And since the 
same time I could neuer see any of those Bookes because the 
King commanded them to be called in, and no more of them 
to be printed, lest in time it would be to their hindrance. 
In witness whereof I set to my hand and marke, the ninth 
of Aprill, Anno 1579." 

Unfortunately there are others of us who "could neuer 
see any of those Bookes." 

Henry Hudson lost his life exploring Hudson bay, 
seeking an outlet to the west. Robert Thorne, in 1527, 
urged the English king to further efforts in the far north, 
saying, ' ' Nowe, then, if from the sayed newe f ounde landes 
the See bee Nauigable, there is no doubte but sayling North- 
warde and passing the pole, descending to the equinoctiall 
lyne, wee shall hitte these Ilandes, and it should bee much 
more shorter way than eyther the Spaniardes or the Porti- 
guals haue. ' ' 

The historian, Gomara, takes the liberty of transferring 
Coronado's mythical city of Quivira from the northeast to 
the northwest, whence "they saw on the coast ships which 
had pelicans of gold and silver on their prows, with mer- 
chandise that they thought to be from Cathay.' ' 

Torquemada writes : * ' It is understood that this river is 
the one that leads to a great city discovered by the Dutch, 
and that is the strait of Anian, by which the ship that 
found it passed from the North sea to the South, and that 
without mistake in this region is the city of Quivira." 
Juan Fernandez de Ladrillero placed the strait 800 Leagues 
north of Compostela, and made a sworn statement to that 
effect in Spain, in 1584. Jean Nicolet, when sent by Cham- 



532 RETROSPECTION 

plain to visit the Winnipegs, that is to say (Men of the 
Sea) of Cathay as was supposed, fancied himself within 
three days of the ocean. 

Juan de Fuca's adventures as told by Michael Lok so 
late as 1596, ran in this wise. After long service in Spain 
as sailor and pilot, Fuca found himself on board the gal- 
leon Santa Ana, from Manila, when captured by Cavendish 
above Acapulco. Fuca lost $60,000. Then he went as pilot 
of three vessels with 300 men sent by the viceroy to find 
and fortify against the English the strait of Anian, but 
the expedition failed owing to mutiny. A second trial, 
however, in 1596, proved successful. He followed the coast 
northward to latitude 47 degrees, or a little farther, where 
he found an opening 100 miles wide which he entered and 
sailed through to the Atlantic, and returning reported the 
country rich in gold, silver, and pearls. For this lie, the 
name of Juan de Fuca was given to the entrance to Puget 
sound, a higher reward than many a better man has re- 
ceived for better service. 

The shores of the Atlantic were little known when ex- 
plored by Columbus and the Cabots, the Pacific midst all 
its mysteries remaining still longer in darkness, and yet the 
potentialities of the Pacific as compared with those of the 
Atlantic at the period of its early exploitations are as is 
the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. 

We come now to exploration and project proper. 

When in 1513 and following years of discoveries it be- 
came known that in place of a proximate Asia a large body 
of water intervened, and the land adjacent to the islands 
first discovered spread out until it displayed a great con- 
tinent, the question assumed more puzzling proportions 
than ever how ships were to pass the barrier. 

Regarding the unknown regions speculation continued, 
being often more fascinating than established fact; so that 
the mythical and the actual continued their course side by 
side, curiosity and credulity acting and reacting on each 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PANAMA CANAL 533 

other to the further stimulating of exploration. And when 
at length the truth was ascertained that a long line of sea- 
board was there before the impatient adventurers, un- 
broken by any natural water-course, the thought of an 
artificial opening assumed important proportions. 

The discovery of the Pacific Ocean by Vasco Nunez de 
Balboa was second in importance only to the original dis- 
covery of land by Columbus twenty-one years before, if, 
indeed, it were second to any other event whatever. By 
it, by the interposition of this great ocean the world was en- 
larged and the mind of the world enlightened. This vast 
expanse of water, and the lands and habitations around it, 
were a clean gain to the globe as measured by the calcula- 
tions of the Genoese. 

Vasco Nunez did not know this, or it might have mod- 
ified his bombast as he marched into the water with loud 
acclaim and much sword shaking and took possession for 
the king of Spain of all that sea, of all its islands and the 
firm land which environed it; of fields and cities; of its 
gold and silver and pearls; of its beasts and birds and 
fishes, — in the slang of to-day, rather a large order; but so 
Christian kings acquired the right of possession to heathen 
lands, not unlike the right of the Bogota government to the 
state of Panama. 

On the return of Balboa from this first expedition of 
Europeans across America, Juan de Ayora was sent to 
establish a line of fortresses between the two seas, but 
abandoned the work for plunder. Antonio Tello de 
Guzman was sent to continue it in 1515, and was the 
first Spaniard to reach the spot called by the natives 
panamd. 

This same year ascent was made by Balboa and Luis 
Carrillo of the river Atrato, subsequently the subject of 
many interoceanic schemes, the purpose at this time being 
to find the golden temple of Dabaiba. This exploration was 
continued by Juan de Tabira and Francisco Pizarro in 
three brigantines, which they built, and a small fleet of 
18 



534 RETROSPECTION 

canoes, the first river navigation in American-built ships 
in America. Ships were also built — they called them ships 
— by Balboa, from material prepared on the eastern slope, 
where grew the best timber for the purpose, and carried 
across the mountains on the backs of Indians, to the head 
waters of what they named the Rio de las Balsas, or River 
of Rafts, whence the constructed vessels were floated down 
to the ocean and used by Balboa in his first visit to the 
Pearl islands. A thousand lives were sacrificed — Las Casas 
says two thousand — in this first transportation of ships 
across the Isthmus. 

The example of Balboa was followed by Gil Gonzalez 
Davila, who dismantled his ships on the Atlantic sides, 
packed up sails, cordage, and timbers, transported the same 
to the Rio Balsas, and there constructed and launched four 
vessels, but lost them all before reaching the mouth of the 
river. Later at Nicaragua, upon the discovery of the 
Freshwater sea, as they called Lake Nicaragua, Francisco 
Hernandez de Cordova took apart one of his brigantines on 
the Pacific coast and conveyed the pieces across the moun- 
tains to Lake Nicaragua for explorations there. As Ad- 
miral of the Freshwater sea, Gil Gonzalez made a futile 
attempt to find a strait through the continent at that point, 
his investigations being from the Atlantic side. 

Following Portuguese progress as step by step the 
countrymen of Prince Henry and Vasco da Gama passed 
down the Brazilian coast, searching estuaries and penetrat- 
ing far into the interior by the great rivers, in 1519 came 
Fernando de Magellan, in five ships, and found and passed 
through the strait which bears his name, the only inter- 
ocean waterway in all the two Americas. Finding and 
utilizing this strait thus easily, on the most direct route, 
sailing west across the Pacific to the Philippine islands and 
around the world, had no doubt a strong effect upon the 
imaginations of cosmographers and mariners, in grounding 
them in the belief of the existence of the mythical Anian. 
If providence had given man for his use so fine a belt of 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PANAMA CANAL 535 

navigable water in the far south, why should there not be 
a similar one in the far north ? 

Another of those singular circumstances which come up 
now and then in the history of discovery may be here men- 
tioned. It so happened that Magellan saw a drawing by 
one of these mendacious map-makers, who had thrown in at 
random open water from ocean to ocean and land beyond 
it, which lie Magellan found true as he sailed through his 
strait with land near on either side. 

In like manner many hints had been given to Columbus 
before he sailed, of the existence of land to the westward. 
He sailed west and found it. Such is the inspiration of 
genius ! 

The next most important discovery after Magellan's 
strait was that of the open polar sea beyond it. This did 
not occur until a century later, when a company of Dutch 
merchants, who thought it about time the world should 
know whether Tierra del Fuego was an island or a conti- 
nent, in 1615 sent thither the ships Endrach and Home, of 
300 and 110 tons respectively, in charge of Jacob le Maire 
and Wilhelm Schouten. The smaller vessel was wrecked, 
and her name given to the sharp point round which a ship 
now first sailed. 

Ever present in the mind of Charles V as well as in that 
of his son Philip, was the waterway, natural or artificial, 
across America, which should be the highway to the Spice 
islands and the Indies. As to the practicability of con- 
structing a canal as viewed by Europeans at this time, Go- 
mara writes in 1554: "It is true that mountains obstruct 
these passages, but if there be mountains there be also 
hands; let but the resolve be formed to make the passage 
and it can be made.'' 

Building ships on the Pacific side, in 1522 Hernan Cortes 
sailed up and down the coast seeking a strait. Two years be- 
fore this he had written Charles V that he regarded a ship 
canal at Nicaragua practicable and desirable. In case this 
is done, he says, "It would render the King of Spain mas- 



536 RETROSPECTION 

ter of so many kingdoms that he might consider himself 
lord of the world.' ' 

The emperor had charged Gil Gonzalez in Nicaragua as 
well as Cortes in Mexico, to search for a shorter way to the 
"Indian Land of Spice/ ' All promised compliance, and 
special expeditions were made for that purpose. Juan de 
Ayola, in 1535 ascended the river Paraguay and crossed 
with 200 Spaniards to Peru. Twelve years later Irola 
crossed the mountains to the Guapay river. Fernando de 
Soto hoped to find a waterway through the continent when 
in 1538 he landed in Florida, and after several years of 
Wanderings ascended the Mississippi as far as the Ohio. 

Returning from his voyage of 1587 John Davis wrote: 
"I have brought the passage to that likelihood as that I am 
assured that it must bee in one of foure places, or els not 
at all. ' ' That is to say, by some one of the imaginary ways 
around or through the northern part of the continent. 
Peter Martyr's map of 1587 has a "Mare Duke" at 60° 
which can scarcely refer to Hudson bay. Acosta, 1590, 
devotes a chapter to "The strait which some affirm to be 
in Florida." 

To Andres de Urdaneta, friar and navigator, the first 
to cross the Pacific sailing eastward, was at one time at- 
tributed the honor of having discovered the mythical strait, 
as he took pleasure in telling strange stories and mapping 
it for the delectation of the credulous. Thus the coasts of 
Central and South America were soon disclosed, but con- 
jectural geography as applied to the north, became wilder 
and more eccentric as the years passed by. 

In rounding Cape Horn into the Pacific in 1578, Francis 
Drake intended if possible to return home through the 
Anian strait, which he sought for on the Oajaca coast of 
Mexico, and thence northward as far as Cape Mendocino. 
The failure of Drake to return by way of the north Pacific 
caused England to confine her efforts to the Atlantic side. 
The ravages of the freebooter, however, in the South sea 
forced upon Spain the necessity of fortifying the strait 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PANAMA CANAL 537 

if any such existed. And that it did exist became all the 
time the more settled opinion from the fact that Drake's 
homeward route was for many years not known to Span- 
iards, so that current rumors became the settled opinion 
that Drake had indeed returned to England by a strait 
which he found in the northern part of the continent. 

Not long afterward appeared a fictitious narrative con- 
nected with this same expedition. It was told by Padre 
Ascension to another priest, Zarate de Salmeron, who wrote 
of it in 1626. He says that a foreign pilot named Monera 
" sailed from the Sea of the North to the Sea of the South 
by the Strait of Anian" with the Englishman Drake, and 
gave the account of it to Rodrigo del Rio, governor of New 
Galicia. Further, the pilot Monera affirmed that he had 
been set on shore in the vicinity of Anian, "very sick and 
more dead than alive,' ' by Drake on his homeward voyage, 
— a rather more bungling falsehood than usual. The Span- 
iards had probably yet to learn that Drake entered the 
Pacific round Cape Horn, and could not therefore have 
sailed over or flown over the northern part of the conti- 
nent, however he may have returned. 

Probably the first formal work published on the subject 
of interoceanic communication was in 1576 and entitled 
"A Discourse of a Discouerie for a new Passage to Cataia," 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert was the author, who aims to ' ' proue 
by authoritie a passage to be on the North side of America 
to goe to Cataia, China, and the East Indea," the authority 
being Plato, Aristotle, and other of the ancient philosophers 
touching the old Atlantis, confirmed by the ''best modern 
geographers ' ' as Frisius, Apianus, and Munster, to the 
effect that America is an island. 

From the first effort by Hugh Willoughby in 1553 to dis- 
cover a northeast passage to the finding of a northwest 
passage by McClure in 1850, and a northeast passage by 
Nordenskjold in 1879, there were many futile attempts to 
sail round the northern end of the continent, quite a num- 
ber of them ending disastrously. 



538 RETROSPECTION 

When after these centuries of examination and discus- 
sion, the coast lay disclosed from Panama to Magellan 
strait, and northward to the Frozen sea, and it became cer- 
tain that there was no Anian or other natural passage 
through the long stretch of continent extending across the 
world, almost from pole to pole, and it came to the definite 
proposition of cutting a canal through the continent, the 
more difficult and impracticable schemes in the north and 
in the south were abandoned, leaving for consideration five 
groups, clustered respectively at Tehuantepec, at Honduras, 
at Nicaragua, at Costa Rica, and on the isthmus of Darien, 
or Panama. The first second and fourth of these groups 
were in due time abandoned, the third and fifth remained 
as the subject of long controversy. 

The plan of a ship canal across the isthmus of Tehuan- 
tepec, 130 miles, using the rivers Coatzacoalcos and Tehuan- 
tepec, or Chimalapa, flowing in either direction, with head 
waters near together, the two constituting an almost con- 
tinuous waterway across the continent, was taken up seri- 
ously, as was also Mr. Eads' scheme of a ship railway, but 
without results from either. 

In the archives in Madrid is a survey made in 1715. A 
half-century later, in 1774, two Spanish officers, Corral and 
Cramer, after careful inspection reported that the rivers 
Chimalapa and Malapaso might be joined by a canal eight 
leagues in length. General Orbegoso, a Spanish official, ex- 
plored and mapped the several isthmuses from Tehuantepec 
south. The map was published in 1839. He did not favor 
the Tehuantepec crossing. This ground was again surveyed 
in 1843 by C. Moro for Jose de Garay and others, who con- 
cluded that a canal similar to the Caledonia in Scotland 
would be better here than a large ship waterway. These 
surveys and reports drew the attention of the United States 
government to this quarter. An American commission was 
formed in 1850, while California traffic congested at 
Panama, with Major Barnard of the United States en- 
gineers at the head. After a personal examination, Major 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PANAMA CANAL 539 

Barnard declared that the route presented few attractions 
for the construction of a ship canal. On the other hand, 
officers of the United States navy looked over the ground 
in 1869 and reported favorably, as did also Captain Shu- 
feldt, who made a personal survey the following year. 

The early occurrences at Nicaragua may be briefly 
stated. The later ones fill volumes. 

Mention has already been made of the efforts of Gil 
Gonzalez in this quarter. To Pedrarias Davila, who went 
there as governor, all was yet new. When he saw the great 
lakes he remembered the words of his royal master, if pos- 
sible to find a strait. He soon discovered the outlet into 
the Atlantic, but how best to construct a royal highway 
occupied him and other officials for many years, the plan 
finally deemed the best being canal cuts round the falls of 
the San Juan, and across from the lake to the Pacific. The 
French and English as well as the Spaniards were in- 
terested. 

The royal engineer, Manuel Galisteo, in 1791 declared 
connecting the lakes and ocean impracticable, the construc- 
tion of locks being then but little understood. 

It was proposed by La Bastide in 1791 to ividen the 
river Sapoa between the lake and the gulf of Papagayo, 
with a canal to the gulf of Nicoya. Construction was de- 
creed by the Spanish Cortes in 1814, but political events 
soon absorbed all other interests. 

Schemes of a ship railway were abandoned, measures 
were taken to build an ordinary transcontinental railroad 
which would so greatly lessen the distance between New 
York and San Francisco, but the work was taken from the 
hands of the American capitalists and built finally by the 
Mexican government. 

Many other proposals were made about this time. A 
franchise was granted to John Baily for a London firm in 
1823. Barclay and Co. offered to construct a canal and 
open the Nicaragua route provided certain concessions 
were made by the government. In 1829 a franchise was 



540 RETROSPECTION 

decreed to the king of Holland, but war with Belgium was 
now the excuse; a survey was begun in 1837 by President 
Morazan for Central America, and continued the following 
year for the government of Nicaragua; meanwhile Edward 
Belcher, of the British navy, was interesting himself over 
a proposed cut between Managua lake and the bay of Fon- 
seca; on several occasions aid was asked from the United 
Stales. From 1839 to 1842 three men, promoters they would 
be called to-day, P. Rouhand, Veteri Castellon, and one 
Jeiiz were trying to raise funds to finance the scheme; the 
co-operation of the king of France was sought in 1844 and 
refused; Louis Napoleon became interested in 1846; in 
1847 the Costa Rica government came forward with a plan 
to come in south of San Juan del Sur along the Sapoa to 
Salinas bay ■ Nicaragua appeared again in 1848 with a con- 
tract with a New York firm to do the work. 

Then in 1849, the magnet gold drawing to California 
men from all the world, came Cornelius Vanderbilt and 
Joseph L. White into the midst of affairs, with their Nicar- 
agua Transit line from New York to San Francisco, "A 
thousand miles shorter than any other route/' they said. 
There were steamboats on the river, and mules for the land 
travel, but the promised canal, which the Clayton-Bulwer 
treaty was to make perpetually neutral, did not material- 
ise. A survey was made of the river San Juan, Lake 
Nicaragua, and the land intervening to the Pacific by the 
Central American Transit Company in 1856, after the 
Childs' survey in 1851, under the direction of the Atlantic 
and Pacific ship canal company. The land section had been 
previously surveyed in 1781 by order of the Spanish gov- 
ernment by Manuel Galisteo, and 1838 by John Baily 
for the Central American government. 

A line for the canal was proposed by S. Bailey in 1852 
from La Yirgen to San Juan del Sur, following nearly the 
track of the Transit company. The United States consul 
at Nicaragua in 1853, E. G. Squier, favored Belcher's plan 
of utilizing both lakes, and passing through the Conejo 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PANAMA CANAL 541 

valley and Estero Real to Fonseca bay. Squier also pro- 
posed a railway from Fonseca bay through Honduras. 

The Nicaragua government, in May, 1858, made a con- 
tract with Felix Belly, for the firm of Belly, Milland, and 
company, for the construction of a ship passage-way from 
ocean to ocean. Mr. Belly failing to do the work, the con- 
tract was assigned to the International Canal company, 
whatever that may have been, and finally to Michel Cheva- 
lier, where it ended. Of the later surveys and the volu- 
minous reports, with lengthy congressional discussions, it 
is not practicable here to speak. 

Thus these centuries of ceaseless expectation have 
passed away and so far as the mind of man may judge, 
Nicaragua's chances for a canal are no better, if as good, 
than they were four hundred years ago, when Gil Gonzalez, 
spurred on by Charles V, was there at hand building and 
sailing his little ships, and hunting around for the best 
place for the royal ditch. 

Costa Rica and Honduras both have had their spasms 
of speculation over the question of canal construction, the 
places considered being the river San Carlos and gulf of 
Nicoya; the rivers Nino and Tempisque and gulf of 
Nicoya ; river Sapao and bay of Salinas ; river Segovia and 
bay of Fonseca; bay of Honduras to bay of Fonseca; Port 
Limon to Caldera, and others. 

And here we come finally to the Panama canal and the 
Pacific. The isthmus of Darien as it was first designated, 
or of Panama as it is now called, being the narrowest and 
lowest American land separating the two oceans, the first 
mainland interior to be explored by Europeans, and the 
spot whence they first saw looking southward the great 
South sea, it was natural, when the question arose of 
breaking through the world-long barrier, that its weakest 
point should be first considered. But whereabout in this 
American netherland was this weakest point? Granted 
that the Darien isthmus presented the fewest obstacles for 



542 RETROSPECTION 

constructing and operating an interocean canal, which of 
the several points presented was, considering everything, 
the best ? 

Gromara said, as early as 1551, "It would have to be by 
one of four lines, namely (1) from Chagres to Panama; 
or (2) by way of the Nicaragua lakes; or (3) from Vera 
Cruz to Tehuantepec; or (4) from Uraba to the gulf of 
San Miguel." That is to say, there were two available 
spots on the isthmus of Darien, as against Tehuantepec 
and Nicaragua as possible rivals. Under the two cate- 
gories mentioned by this very early historian there were 
to be considered, at Panama, the river Chagres, Gorgona, 
and Panama; Trinidad and Caimito, Navy bay, Chagres 
liver, Bonito, and Bernardo; San Bias gulf and the Chepo 
river; and at Darien, the bay of Caledonia, Port Escoces 
and the rivers Arguia, Paya, and Tayra and the gulf of 
San Miguel; the Atrato river; the Napipi and bay of 
Cupia ; and the river Uruando to Kelly 's inlet. 

In February, 1534, in a cedula issued by Charles V, 
Pascual de Andagoya was commissioned to examine and 
report on the feasibility of uniting the Chagres river with 
the Rio Grande, or the Panama, by means of a canal. In 
his dispatch to the emperor, after his survey had been com- 
pleted, Andagoya expressed the opinion that ' ' There w T as no 
monarch in all Europe rich enough for such an enterprise. ' ' 

Under orders of Pedro de los Rios, governor of Panama 
in 1526, the Rio los Lagartos, as the Chagres river was then 
called, and a small stream known as the Panama river 
flowing in the opposite direction, also the Rio Grande to- 
gether with the country between them were explored for 
the purpose of facilitating communication between the 
two seas. Land carriage was thus reduced to a distance of 
nine leagues. This is probably the shortest land space 
between waterlines on the continent, the two places con- 
nected being then called Chepo and Carti, where a survey 
was made to Mandinga bay by Evan Hopkins for the New 
Granada government. 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PANAMA CANAL 543 

Diego Fernandez de Velasco, governor of Castilla del 
Oro, as Costa Rica and the Isthmus to the west was then 
called, was ordered by the king of Spain, in 1616, to re- 
port on the feasibility of connecting the rivers Dacil and 
Damaquiel some thirty leagues from Cartagena • and a 
similar investigation at the gulf of San Miguel and the 
Rio Darien. Surveys were made of the Chagres, or Limon 
bay, and Panama route by Lloyd and Falmarc in 1829 
under a commission from Bolivar; and again by M. 
Garella, who reported bad harbors at either end. 

It is worthy of remark that of the many surveys made 
about this time in this vicinity not one reported favorably 
on the route selected by M. de Lesseps. 

The present is not the first appearance of the United 
States upon the Panama isthmus, nor the present Panama 
government the first with which we have had to deal. In 
1835, ten years after the United States government had 
been first seriously considering interoceanic communica- 
tion, the president was requested by the senate to enter 
into negotiations with the Isthmian governments for the 
protection of Americans who might engage in this work. 
Whereupon in 1846, a treaty was made with New Granada, 
and protection and right of way promised for ' ' Any modes 
of communication that now exist or that may hereafter 
be constructed," the United States to guarantee to New 
Granada neutrality and rights of sovereignty. A railway 
was the proximate purpose. It was begun in 1850, with 
Colon and Panama as the termini and was completed in 
1855, at a cost of eight millions for the 48 miles. After 
paying the stockholders, William H. Aspinwall, Henry 
Chauncey, and John L. Stephens, twenty millions, the road 
was sold to the de Lesseps company for seventeen and a 
half millions. 

In 1850 and 1851 Captain Fitzroy crossed the Isthmus 
for explorations, but his investigations were impeded by 
forest and morass, thick tropical undergrowth, climate, 
poisonous insects and reptiles, and hostile natives. 



544 RETROSPECTION 

Privilege to construct the proposed canal at this point 
was granted in 1852 by the government of New Granada 
to Edward Cullen, Charles Fox, John Henderson, and 
Thomas Brassey, with power to select any port west of the 
Atrato to Punta Mosquitos as the Atlantic terminus. 
Again in 1859 appeared on the scene Captain Fitzroy, en- 
tering Port Escoces, or Caledonia bay, north of the gulf 
of Darien, and discovering the river Savanah flowing into 
the gulf of San Miguel, Panama bay, a route not men- 
tioned by Humboldt nor hitherto mapped by any one. 
After a careful examination of the country, Fitzroy con- 
cluded that this was the best place for a ship canal, and so 
reported to Lord Palmerston and the London Geographical 
society. The Isthmus here is 33 miles wide, or by way 
of the Savanah, as the canal would go, 39 miles. The 
harbors at both termini are good. 

In the opinion of Dr. Cullen, who examined the ground, 
a canal might, with no great difficulty, be cut from the 
source of the Savanah through a ravine three leagues in 
length to Caledonia bay, say from Principe, or from the 
mouth of the Lara, to Port Escoces, a distance of twenty- 
two miles. It would be without locks, the water of either 
ocean flowing freely in and out, governed by the tides and 
the time of transit from sea to sea would be six hours. A 
survey was also made by a competent engineer, Lionel 
Gisborne, who reported the conditions favorable in every 
respect. If the several reports of surveyors and engineers, 
made at different times and under widely different aus- 
pices, are to be relied upon, it is safe to say that this route 
combines all the advantages of all the Isthmus crossings, 
namely, shortening and making direct course, excellence of 
harbors and low elevation of interior, good climate, no 
locks and expeditious service. 

It was with difficulty that most of these surveys were 
made. Everywhere the natives, fierce and jealous, interposed 
obstacles and threatened life, as upon the attempted ascent 
of the Paya river by Mr. Wheelwright in 1837, and later 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PANAMA CANAL 545 

oy Dr. Cullen. In like manner Mr. Hopkins was turned 
from his journey up the Chepo toward Mandinga or San 
Bias bay. The savages also feared the diseases of civiliza- 
tion, especially small-pox. 

Upon the discovery of gold in California steamship 
lines were established between New York and San Fran- 
cisco, with transits over the isthmuses of Panama, Nica- 
ragua, and Tehuantepec, though the last named route was 
soon abandoned. Overland stages were set running west- 
ward from the Mississippi river, following for the most 
part the old trapper and emigrant trails. The first over- 
land railway within the United States was completed in 
1871. 

A company was formed in 1853 under the auspices of 
Captain Pirn to build a railway across from Punta Mico, 
but work was not begun on it. 

A survey made in 1866 in Chiriqui by the United 
States officers for a railway through the cordillera, with 
Chiriqui and Shepard on the Atlantic and Golfo Dulce on 
the Pacific as termini, was favorably reported on by Com- 
modore Engle. 

The inspection of the late French undertaking was at 
the congress of geographical science held in Paris in 1875. 
A company was organized under General Tiirr, and Lieu- 
tenant Wyse of the French navy was sent to the Isthmus. 
The Colon-Panama line was selected, a grant was obtained 
from the Colombian government, and construction placed 
in the hands of Ferdinand de Lesseps. One hundred and 
twenty million dollars it was thought would complete the 
work, but two hundred millions were spent before failure 
was admitted and the effects sold for forty millions. De 
Lesseps died and was buried; and Frenchmen cursed him 
because he lost at Panama the money he had made for 
them at Suez. 

Whether the route selected by the French was or was 
not the best it was assuredly the mast available. The 
question was not, for how small an amount could this work 



546 RETROSPECTION 

be done, but could it be done at all ? Could the money for 
it be obtained? And could two hundred millions be se- 
cured for construction along the line of a railway and over 
a beaten path easier than one hundred millions to be ex- 
pended in unknown and almost impenetrable morass and 
jungle 1 

AY hen the proposition came before the United States 
government there was no question raised as to routes; it 
was to take for forty millions what had cost the French 
two hundred millions and dig where they had dug — that 
or nothing. And it makes no difference now to know or 
not to know that a canal can be constructed for half the 
cost and operated at one-quarter of the expense on some 
other than the De Lesseps line, though it may be well for 
the next canal-builder to bear this in mind. Indeed, so 
far as the United States alone is concerned, Nicaragua 
would have been more advantageous than any place at 
Panama; but for the use of all the world the latter is 
more central and convenient. 

It was time the work should be done, and there was no 
one but our government to do it. Time enough had been 
spent over it by the European governments, and also by 
the American Congress, considering how small the outlay 
which was to produce such great results. So Rameses II., 
as we are told, meditated long beneath his pyramids and 
his Sphinx over the plan which came to his mind of doing 
the work at Suez himself; which he finally left to French- 
men to do, the question of time or the world's waiting two 
or three thousand years not making apparently much dif- 
ference to him. 

Our Congress likewise enjoyed its Pyramids, and its 
Sphinx, in the corporate interests and political influence 
that obstructed its efforts. 

Napoleon Bonaparte thought of cutting through the 
Suez isthmus, but when informed by his engineer that the 
Mediterranean was thirty feet higher than the Red Sea he 
reflected upon the evils which might arise from disturbing 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PANAMA CANAL 547 

the equilibrium of the world's waters and considerately 
desisted. 

On another occasion the Corsican obtained better ad- 
vice, though he acted on it no more than on the other. 
Asking Decres, one day, what he should do about the ces- 
sion of Louisiana to the United States, the minister re- 
plied, "If the isthmus of Panama is cut through some day 
it will occasion an immense revolution in navigation, so 
that a voyage around the world will be easier than the 
longest cruise to-day. Louisiana will be on the line of this 
new route, and will be of inestimable value. Don't give 
it up." 

The brilliant consummation, on the part of the United 
States government, of preliminary measures favorable to 
the Panama enterprise assured the speedy construction and 
permanent security of an interoceanic waterway at this 
point. It is not probable that this could have been accom- 
plished at this time by any other nation. No other in- 
fluence would have improvised a responsible government 
with which to deal, and one favorable in every respect; no 
other power could have thus secured the necessary author- 
ity on the Isthmus, the necessary land and its dominion, 
harmonizing conflicting interests and silencing conflicting 
tongues. 



INDEX 



Adams, C. F., on the recall of the 
judiciary, 515. 

African, cost of the, 368-70; true 
and false kindness, 369. 

Agriculture, progress of, 202. 

Alaska, purchase of, 6. 

Alvarado, J. B., Historia de Cali- 
fornia, MS. dictation for use 
as historical material by Mr. 
Bancroft, 311. 

Americans, new, types of, 154-7; 
Am. miner, characteristics of, 
169-71. 

An artless adventurer, 114-136. 

Andagoya, P. de, surveys for a 
canal, 542. 

Andrade, J., collection of books 
and manuscripts, 313; pur- 
chased for the Bancroft Li- 
brary, 314. 

Anglo-Americans, ever lessening 
ratio of, 505. 

Anglo - Californian, characteris- 
tics, 161; ethnic evolution of, 
161-4; nobility of, 161. 

Anglo-Saxons in America over- 
burdened by foreigners, 152-4. 

Anian, mythical strait of, 44, 

525-30. 
An unholy alliance, 268-83. 
Ape\ M., the scientific savage, 

journey of, 67. 



Appellate tribunals as high 
courts of technicalities, 514. 

Archives, surveyor-general's of- 
fice, 309; copied for Bancroft 
Library, 310; of the Vigilance 
Committee, 312; and others, 
309-17. 

Asia and Africa in America, 
345-374. 

Australia, gold product, 101. 

Balboa, V. N. de, early adven- 
tures of, 118; later expeditions 
of, 226-37; unconscious of the 
importance of his discovery, 
533. 

Baldwin, " Lucky," Bank of Cali- 
fornia loans, 205. 

Bancroft, H. H., parentage and 
birth, 77; early life, 78-89; 
Ohio and the town of Gran- 
ville, 75-8 ; atmosphere and en- 
vironment, 77-80; discipline, 
old methods and new, 79-82; 
education, 82; farm work, 82- 
83; Grandfather Howe, 86; 
anti-slavery convention, 84 ; 
wagoning slaves on their way 
from Kentucky to Canada. 85; 
choice of a career, 88-9 ; meet - 
ing with Sutter, 90; interview 
with George of Coloma, 106; 
arrival in San Francisco. 114; 
Buffalo bookstore experience*, 



549 



550 



INDEX 



114-5; the voyage, Havana, 
Jamaica, and on the Isthmus, 
115-8; a transformation, 115; 
at San Diego, 160; in the 
mines, 166; delights of fresh 
political air, 195; fruit-rais- 
ing, 202; with Diaz in Mexico, 
287; book collecting and busi- 
ness, 301-18; among the his- 
tory makers of the North and 
the archives and collectors of 
the South, 308-18 ; friendly bat- 
tling with the Hispano-Cali- 
fornians, 310; a signal achieve- 
ment, a unique collection, 311- 
318; purposes and projects, 
319-20; personnel of the Ban- 
croft Library, 307-30; building 
and business, 321-7; further 
ingatherings from the East 
and Europe, 313-19; indexing 
and extracting of material, 
330 ; difficulties encountered, 
325-37; history writing, 330- 
340; the series, 332; methods 
employed, 334-45 : further 
work in Mexico, 343; distin- 
guished visitors and collabo- 
rators, 344; the work accom- 
plished, 344. 

Bancroft Library, a collection of 
collections, 312-13; summary, 
313-17; library building, 318. 

Bankers, bad and good, 321; 
more pretentious than patri- 
otic, some of them, 322. 

Battle-ships, futility of competi- 
tive building, 16. 

Begbie, Sir M., his court at Vic- 
toria, 305. 

Bonneville, Capt., expeditions, 53. 

Boone, D., in Kentucky, 74. 



Book collecting and the collector, 
314. 

Brannan, S., arrival in ship 
Brooklyn, 70; his Mormon fol- 
lowing, 71; wealth and busi- 
ness enterprise, 71-2; as a 
miner, 113; among the judges, 
181. 

Brasseur de Bourbourg, histor- 
ical material, 313. 

Bribery, early official, 233; in 
later times, 216-83. 

Broderick, D. C, political career, 
198; killed by Terry, 200. 

Buckley, C, blind boss of the old 
regime, 245. 

Building of the Republic, 1. 

Burns, W. J., detective, 248; 
opinion of Ruef, 501. 

Business, in the early fifties, 126. 



Cabot and Cortereal, discover- 
ies of, 527. 

Cabrillo's survey to San Diego, 
44. 

Calhoun, P., indictment and 
prosecution, 249 ; characteris- 
tics of, 269-70. 

California, acquisition of, 6; 
mapped as an island, 43; peo- 
pling of, 66; admitted as a 
state, the question of slavery, 
92; town sites, 107; land 
titles, 108; loyalty of, 109; re- 
acting influence on the East, 
111; representative men of the 
flush times, 113; coast trading 
in 1835, 114, 127; isthmus 
transit in early days, 119; 
steamer passengers, 123; typ- 
ical miner, 125; earliest men 



INDEX 



551 



of the time, 172; earliest set- 
tlers, 175; always loyal, true 
to the right and to the Union, 
206. 

Call of gold, 90-113. 

Canada, French and Indian peo- 
ples, 146-7. 

Capital and Labor, relative atti- 
tudes of, 274. 

Capital, in relation to labor, 376; 
coercive and tyrannical, 380. 

Central Pacific Railroad, antici- 
pations from, 232; epoch of 
intimidation, 233; infamies 
and impositions, 234. 

Carrillo, L., ascends the river 
Atrato with Balboa, 533. 

Carver, J. J., in Dacotah, 67. 

Cattle raising in the mountains, 
66. 

Cerruti, G., secretary and col- 
lector for the Bancroft Library, 
309-10; his literary achieve- 
ments, 311-12. 

China, tea and fur trade, 3; im- 
portance of isthmus to, 522. 

Chinese, first appearance in 
America, 345; friendly recep- 
tion with profuse promises, 
346; followed by ill treatment, 
351-5; cruelties and outrages 
in the mines, 351; raids of 
drunken miners, 352-5; perse- 
cutions in the city, 353; Den- 
nis Kearney and Kearney ism, 
354; folly of government, 365; 
good qualities, 351; indispen- 
sable for household, farm, and 
factory work, 356: character 
of, 356-8 1 as workingmen, 357 ; 
in the mines, 350; foreign 



miners' tax, 360; attitude of 
press and politicians, 353-5; 
false charges, 355; insane pol- 
icy of the United States, 355- 
365. 

Cibola, rumors concerning, 43. 
Citizenship, debasement of, 234- 

237; timidity of prominent 

men, 478. 
Civilization, rights and wrongs 

of, 140-4; a new civilization, 

489. 
Clergy, attitude of, toward high 

crime, 278. 

Coleman, W. T., president Vigi- 
lance Committee, 190, 197. 

Collecting, philosophy of, books 
and curios, 303, 314; various 
expeditions and agencies, 304- 
344. 

Coloma, gold discovery, 90 ; King 
George, 107. 

Colombia, canal zone negotia- 
tions, 8. 

Colonial, shipping, 2; expansion, 
1-6 ; . New England and Vir- 
ginia colonists, 54. 

Columbus, seeking a strait, 522; 
speculations of, 526. 

Commerce, of the isthmus, 521; 
pathways of the plains, 64; 
commerce of the prairies, 68; 
of the isthmus, 521. 

Comparative republicanism, 284- 
300. 

Comstock mines, gambling in 

204. 

Coon, H. P., police judge, 196. 

C6rdova, F. H. de, in Nicaragua, 
534. 



552 



INDEX 



Coronado. F. V. do, expedition to 
Now Mexico, 43. 

Cortes, H., seeks a strait, 535. 

Court of law, in Victoria, 305; 
in England and America, 252 
253-, physical and moral para- 
phernalia, 254 ; rich and poor 
litigants, 261 ; under the in- 
cubus of technicalities, 508. 

Credit Mobilier, from Paris, be- 
comes a text-book in America; 
what it teaches, 234. 

Crime, epochs of, 194; the true 
criminal class, 221; our courts 
of law, 225; king and over 
lord, 277 ; crops from dragon's 
teeth, 279. 

Crittenden, A. P., shot by Laura 
D. Fair, 200. 

Cuba, rendezvous of New World 

adventurers, 523. 
Cullen, E., projects for a canal, 

544. 

Cumberland turnpike, construc- 
tion and traffic, 61. 

Cowles, T., mariner, 530. 



Dabaiba, golden temple of, 119, 
533. 

Dana, R. H., Jr., Two Years he- 
fore the Mast, 114. 

Darien, Scotch settlement, 22-3. 

Dark age of graft, 232-249; 
when ended, 490. 

Davila, G. G., on the rio Balsas, 
534. 

De Lesseps, F., canal-digging ex- 
periences, 543-6. 

Dewey, G., action at Manila, 12. 



Diaz, P., a beneficent ruler, 287- 
288; unjustly driven forth, 
285 ; life and character, 285-7 ; 
second-term theory, 289. 

Discoveries, Spanish and English, 
523-4. 

Douglas, Sir J., chief at Victoria, 
303; Lady Douglas, 304. 

Dows, J., patriot, " contribution 
to the court," 196. 

Drake, F., his many false reports, 
45; his Amian strait and voy- 
age round the world, 536-7. 

Education, waste and worth, 436 ; 
too free to be highly valued, 
438; many spoiled by it, 439; 
too many professional men, 
442; as a fetish, 445; igno- 
rance of teachers, 447; tainted 
money, 450; poor examples for 
the young, 451; ethics of, 446- 
452. 

Eliot, Charles W., Dr., liberal 
views in education, 443. 

Emigration, early wagon roads, 
10; through the Alleghanies, 
74; into the Ohio and Missis- 
sippi valleys, 61-2; to Oregon 
and California, 68-70; Oregon 
camp-fires, 305. 

Equal rights, overthrow of, 493. 

Erie Canal, importance of and 
influence in development, 59; 
effect on New York, 62. 

Ethnic evolutions, 65; on the 
plains, 66-7. 

Evolution of a library, 291-318. 

Expansion and empire, 1-17; at 
first bewildering to the colo- 
nists, 10. 



INDEX 



553 



Explorations of government, 56. 

Expulsion of Asiatics, 348-55; 

effect on manufactures, 351-9. 



Fashion, freaks of, 434. 

Field, S. J., while U. S. judge 
his man kills Terry, 263. 

" Fifty-four forty or fight," ar- 
gument in the Oregon ques- 
tion, 4. 

Filibustering, modern piracy, 290. 

Filipinos, incapable of self-gov- 
ernment, 11-13. 

Fletcher, Drake's chaplain's fan- 
ciful report, 44-5. 

Flush times, features of, 167-71. 

France, on the Panama isthmus, 
9; in Mexico, 290. 

Franciscans, their California 
Utopia, 26; missions, methods, 
and wealth, 27-8. 

Fremont, J. C, entanglements in 
Paris; worthlessness as a man, 
234. 

Frobisher, M., strange stories 
and cosmographical specula- 
tions, 528-30. 

Frontiers, passing of, 137-148; 
beginning and progress, 137; 
Atlantic and Pacific, elusive- 
ness and disappearance, 161. 

Fuca, J. de, adventures of; what 
Michael Lok said, 532. 

Fur trade, northwest coast, 3 : 
of the plains, 52; early expe- 
ditions, 52-3. 



Gama. V. da. and Prince Henry 
their wavs and works, 534. 



Gambling, a typical saloon of 
the early fifties; human life 
the stake; "home or the 
mines," 124-5. 

Gilbert, Sir H., book on inter- 
oceanic strait, 537. 

Gloria in Excelsis, the great 
work which has been accom- 
plished, 503-520. 

Gold, discovery of; interview of 
Marshall and Sutter, 90; the 
call of, 90-113; inrush of peo- 
ple, emigrant trains and ships, 
100; reaction on the East, 111 ; 
effect on industries and trans- 
portation, 94-99; tax on min- 
ing, 133. 

Golden Gate, the name, 172. 

Gomara, site of Quivira, 531; his 
several routes for Panama 
Canal, 542. 

Government, good and bad, 486; 
standards of excellence, 490-2; 
choice of rulers, 225-8; gov- 
ernment ideals, 492. 

Governors of California, some of 
them, 198. 

Graft, origin of, 232-7; its ad- 
vent, 69; dark age of, 232. 

Grafters, patriotism of, 273-6. 

Grant, U. S., overrated as a man, 
231. 

Granville, Mass., organization of 
Licking Land Co., 76. 

Granville, Ohio, a New Eng- 
land settlement, 71: physical 
features. 77: township :m<l 
farms, 78; social and religious 
characteristics, 70: home life. 
SO; anti-slavery feeling, 82; 
underground railroading. 85; 



554 



INDEX 



politics, 86-7; education and 
religion, 87-9. 

Gray, R., enters Columbia River, 
2; voyage round the world, 3. 

Guadalupe Hidalgo, treaty of, 
92, 172, 309; Mexican law in 
California, 178. 

Guzman, A. T. de, line of for- 
tresses across the isthmus, 533. 

Hatch, of Solano, fruit-farming 
methods, 202. 

Heney, F. J., his work inaugu- 
rated by Roosevelt, 229; as 
prosecutor of high crime, 247; 
his career, 248, 490; great 
work accomplished and poor 
return, 272-3; gross ingrati- 
tude of people, 502, 511-12. 

High crime, the crimes of the 
wealthy and quasi-respectable, 
evolution of, 210-31; cupidity 
the cause, 216; training of 
young men * for, 217; origin 
and development, 219. 

Highways, historic, 60. 

Hispano - Californian, disappear- 
ance of, 170; characteristics, 
171. 

History, the writing of, Russian 
material, 306 ; uncertainties 
and speculations regarding, 
newspaper projects, 319; de- 
mands of business, 320-2; site 
and building on Market Street, 
321; prejudices encountered, 
training assistants, indexing, 
plan and routine, 322-7; 
methods of writing, 319; aim 
and ambition, 321-9; dilem- 
mas, 323-4; further plans 
and speculations, 324-31; 



avoid irrelevant expressions 
of opinion, 328; indexing, ex- 
tracting, and writing, 329-31; 
Native Races first published, 
332; the series complete, 332; 
incompetency of the inexperi- 
enced, 336; publication, 325; 
cooperative methods, 333-4 ; 
training and utilizing help, 
336; free reference to authori- 
ties, effect of religion on his- 
tory, 337; innovations, 338; 
Professor Royce, sectarianism, 
filling gaps, 341-2; intercourse 
with Porfirio Diaz, various ar- 
chives, 342 ; Henry George and 
his book, Dom Pedro and oth- 
ers, 344. 

Hontan, Baron la, fictitious jour- 
ney of, 50. 

Horn, Cape, discovery and name, 
535. 

Hounds or Regulators, exploits 
of, 180. 

Hudson, H., explores Hudson 
Bay, 531. 

Hakluyt tells many strange sto- 
ries as to the way the conti- 
nent was made, 528. 

Huntington, C. P., and others in 
the mines, 112; maker of mal- 
odorous history, 232; feud 
with Stanford, 234-5. 



Immigration, too much low ele- 
ment, 154-5. 
Imperialism, a fantasy, 11-16. 

Indians, of California, 26; killed 
by kindness, 27-8; as Chaplain 
Fletcher said he saw them, 45-, 
migrations of, 50; their path- 
ways over the plains, 70; 



INDEX 



555 



rights of, 137; relative treat- 
ment by English and Spanish, 
138-44; policy of Europeans, 
150-1 ; origin of, 306-7. 

Initiative, its nature and object, 
and its operations in Oregon, 
507. 

Injustice of law, 250-267. 

Innokentie, Metropolitan of Mos- 
cow, 313. 

Interoceanic communication, 

early efforts to find a strait, 
521-2; many schemes concern- 
ing, 430-42. 

Interregnum of crime, 194-209, 
277. 

Inventions, influence of the cot- 
ton gin, and effect of others, 
58. 

Isthmus of Darien, or Panama, 
adventurers from Cuba, 526-8; 
traffic in the olden time, 95, 
521; early expeditions from, 
119; transit in 1852, 122-3; 
canal routes, 542-6. 

Jackson, A., in Florida, 5. 

Japan, called to life, 349; carry- 
ing trade, 17; development, 
367 ; Japanese as laborers, 366. 

Jesuits, expulsion of, 26. 

Johnson, H. W., the man and his 
work, 195; emancipator of the 
people, 229 ; phenomenal efforts 
and achievements, 483; vic- 
tories and reforms, 229 ; his 
advent an epoch in history. 
232; alone, he delivered the 
state, 495; with Roosevelt, 
295; character, 490, 498; re- 
call of judges. 267; clean poli- 
tics, 500; further effort with 



more results, 503, 518; what 
we owe him, and what our 
children owe him, 323. 

Journalism, the average news- 
paper of to-day a curiosity, 
400; politics on either side 
mostly lies, the writer know- 
ing that the reader knows the 
statements to be lies; purposes 
of the publisher, owners of 
newspapers, 401-6; make-up of 
the modern paper, influence of 
money, 406-9; prejudices of 
the proprietor, 411; the aver- 
age newspaper always for sale, 
403; prints what the people 
want, little influence of, 409; 
a prostituted press, 406-7. 

Juarez B., life of, wild Indian, 
judge, governor, president, 
flight, one of the world's great 
men, 285, 290. 

Judah, T. D., railroad surveyor 
and originator of the Central 
Pacific, 236. 

Judiciary, inadequate and cor- 
rupt, 252-7; the protection of 
recall, 258-269 ; skilled in tech- 
nicalities, 512-3; price of jus- 
tice in America, 515. 

Jury system, 254. 

Kearney, D., on the sand lots, 
354; anti-Chinese crusade, 353- 
355. 

King, J., of W., war on high 
crime, 188-9; assassination of, 
190. 

King, T. S., patriotism and loy- 
alty. 110. 

Kino, Padre, in Primeria A It a. 
51. 



556 



INDEX 



Labor, throes of. 375-99; mili- 
tant attitude of, 376; nobility 
of, 378; in mediaeval times, 
376; in its relation to capital, 
376; American and Asiatic, 
351-62; emancipation of, 379; 
need of protection, 391; the 
foundation of capital, protec- 
tion by government, 382; de- 
serves a fair wage, 384; the 
proper wage, price per hour, 
necessity of unionism, 381; 
boycotts and strikes unneces- 
sary and iniquitous, 391; 
criminality of strikes, 391-3; 
of boycotting and blacklisting, 
392; conditions in San Fran- 
cisco, 467-9; in other cities, 
468-77; prosperity of free 
cities, 482. 

Labor leaders, the walking dele- 
gate, 378; becomes arrogant, 
then tyrannical, as office-hold- 
ers a curse to the community, 
387; evil influence of, 387-9. 

Land, early mid-continent values, 
75; aboriginal, ownership of, 
139. 

Land titles, Mexican grants and 
mining titles, 108; Mexican 
land titles, 108, 109; in Cali- 
fornia, 309. 

Langdon, W. H., his good work 
as district attorney, 246-9. 

Larkin, T. 0., family and official 
archives, 373. 

Latin race in America, 158. 

Law, injustice of, 250; erratic 
courses of, 251; further vaga- 
ries of, 252-9; futility of 
precedents, 257; as a fetish, 
252-7 ; vigilance and law, 263- 



265; slow process of, 275; the 
profession of and respect for, 
515. 

Lee, R. E., a great soldier, 231. 

Leon, J. P. de, in search of 
Utopia, 22. 

Lesseps, F. de, work on isthmus 
canal and sale, 542-3. 

Lewis and Clarke, expedition, 56. 

Library, the Bancroft, evolution 
of, 301; beginning, 302; prog- 
ress, 303-20. 

Lick, J., mind and heart, 457; 
character, life and death, 457- 
458. 

Licking Land Co., 76. 

" Literary Industries," acknowl- 
edgments in, 338. 

Los Angeles, early jealousy of 
San Diego, 160; good men 
saved the city and brought 
prosperity, 498. 

Louisiana purchase, Napoleon 
and Monroe, 5. 



Madero, insurrection and an- 
archy, 299. 

Magellan, F. de, voyage, 534. 

Manufactures, early, 201 ; decline 
of, 233; necessity for, 468-78. 

Marshall, J., discovers gold, 90. 

Maximilian and the French in- 
tervention, 290; death, 291; 
imperial library, purchased for 
the Bancroft collection, 313- 
314. 

McKinley, W., Spanish War pol- 
icy, 12. 

Meiggs, H., honest Harry, de- 
faulter, 281. 



INDEX 



557 



Menendez, P., a rather menda- 
cious story teller, full account 
of Anian strait, 528-30. 

Methods of writing history, 319- 
344. 

Metropolitan San Francisco, 455- 
484; troubles, 459. 

Mexican people, mixed breeds, 
their improvement, 286. 

Mexico, war with, 6, 63, 211. 

Migrations and development, 54- 
73; from New England, 54; 
from Virginia, 55. 

Mills, D. O., in the mines, 112; 
Bank of California, 205. 

Mills of the gods, 172-193. 

Miners of California, character- 
istics of, 163-4; ever-vary- 
ing qualities, 166-7; misrep- 
resented by romancers, 166; 
typical man, 167; chivalry of, 
96; representative San Fran- 
cisco men in the mines, min- 
ing development, 70; foreign 
miners' tax, 133. 

Missions of California, charac- 
teristics of, 27; property, 28; 
secularization, 28; extent of, 
175. 

Mississippi bubble, 23. 

Mississippi valley, occupation of, 
56. 

Modern journalism, 400-413. 

Moncacht Ape\ journey down the 
Columbia, 67. 

More, Sir Thomas, Utopia, 24. 

Mormons, origin and history, 
29-41; religion. 30 7; book of, 
30, 33; miracles and revela- 
tions, 36; search for a Saints' 
Rest, 70; contingent by water; 



Santa Fe" battalion, 70; in 
Utah, 70; encounters with 
emigrants, 72; in California 
mines, 99. 



National turnpike, effect on 
progress, 59. 

Natural resources, monopolists 
of, 227. 

Negro, the, his position in Amer- 
ica, 367; slavery and freedom, 
368; as an American citizen, 
369, 504. 

Nemos, a nameless nobleman, 
306. 

New France, decadence of, 52. 

New land and new people, 149- 
171. 

New World, primitive conditions, 
21. 

Nicaragua, proposed ship canal, 
routes and explorations, 540- 
544; U. S. negotiations, 20. 

Niza, M. de, journey to New 
Mexico, 43. 

Nootka convention, 3. 

Northern mystery, fable and 
falsehood, 44 ; disappearance 
of, 50, 529. 

Northwest Coast, occupation of, 
1 ; fur-trade, 3. 

Nugent, J., he and his " Herald,'* 
191. 



Octopus, as railroad manipu- 
lators, rulers of the people, 

and witnesses in court, 232-8; 
teachings of, 241; blighting 
breath, 245. 



558 



INDEX 



Ohio, valley of, and settlement, 
75; Ohio Yankees at home, 
74-89. 

Ofiate, J. de, on Colorado, 46. 

Oregon, question, 3 ; " Fifty-four- 
forty or fight," 4; people of, 
158. 

Osio, J., his history and docu- 
ments as material for Mr. 
Bancroft, 313. 

Overland travel, emigrants and 
adventurers, 66-94. 

Owen, J., buys New Harmony, 
25. 



Pacific Mail Steamship Co., in- 
fluence for good and evil, 108. 

Pacific Ocean, discovery of, 118; 
U. S. frontage on, 2; coast 
line, 4; waste of water, 49; 
wealth of shores, 67; poten- 
tialities of, 475. 

Panama canal, early schemes 
and efforts, 540-1 ; surveys for, 
543-6; work of de Lesseps and 
sale, 543-5; significance of, 
521-6; Napoleon considers it, 
546; dimensions of canal, 9; 
what it will accomplish, 524- 
525; its influence on Califor- 
nia, 476; on New York, 477. 

Panama, city of, old town and 
new, 121 ; entrepot of the Pa- 
cific, 521-2; the city in 1541, 
119; importance of, in early 
times, 521. 

Panama, isthmus of, romance re- 
garding. 118; glory of other 
days, 118-9; key to New World 
commerce, 120; explorations 
and surveys, 541-6. 



Panama railway, construction 
and sale of, 122, 543; Chinese 
laborers, 122. 

Panama, state of, purchase of 
canal zone, 8; fortification pol- 
icy, 14-15. 

Passes and routes overland, and 
through the mountains, 67-8. 

Patriotism, loss of, 504; stand- 
ard of citizenship lowered, 505. 

Patterson, W., Darien settlement, 
22-3. 

Penn, W., his Utopia, 24; pur- 
chase of American lands from 
the English king, 138; deal- 
ings with the Indians, 139-40; 
a sixteenth-century conscience, 
139; rights of aboriginal land- 
owners, 140. 

Petrof, I., voyages to Alaska and 
Russia for the Bancroft Li- 
brary, 305, 342. 

Phelan, J. D., his municipal 
administration, 245; crusade 
against crime, 271 ; good work 
accomplished, 490. 

Philippines, undesirable posses- 
sions, 14. 

Pike and Long in the Rocky 
mountains, 67. 

Pinart, A., French savant, 306; 
collector and writer, 306; his 
valuable material secured by 
Mr. Bancroft, 306-12. 

Pioneers who were not pioneers, 
171. 

Pirates, Morgan at Panama, 121. 

Pixley, F., his " Argonaut " and 
virulent scores of Stanford, 
234-5. 



INDEX 



559 



Pizarro, F., at Panama, 119; on 
the Atrato, 533. 

Plains, mystery of, 42-53; land 
of enchantment, 48; pathways 
of, 51, 62; garden of the gods, 
65; a prolific amphitheatre, 
65; letting in the light, 50; 
entrances and trails, 51; con- 
quest of, 144. 

Polygamy, Mormon revelations 
concerning, 36; established in 
Utah, 40. 

Population of U. S. in 1790, 
156; of early California, 103; 
changes in character of, 151-5; 
centres of, 157; west coast 
types, 163-7; quality of, in the 
mines, 166-7. 

Presidents of U. S., 211-2; some 
characteristics, 231. 

Primary election, change of, 505. 

Progressive government, 485- 
503; significance and purpose, 
503; what Hiram Johnson did, 
497; the work of Roosevelt, 
503; men of Los Angeles, 498; 
a model legislature, 500 ; 
Burns and Ruef, 501. 

Prosecution of high criminals not 
a failure, 271-3. 

Proselyting, spirit of, 18; vari- 
ous methods, 18-20. 

Ptolemy and the conjectural 
geography of 1530, 529. 

Pueblos of California, 179. 

Puritans, arrival of, and atti- 
tude toward the natives, 137. 



Quakers as colonists. 153. 
Quivira, mythical city of, 43. 



Race, new combinations and 
blendings in U. S., 101; in 
California, 115; other forma- 
tions, intermixtures, and de- 
velopments, 149-52; predomi- 
nance in U. S., 161-3. 

Railroads overland, incipiency, 
69. 

Railway methods bring distress, 
322. 

Ralston, W. C, life and death, 
204. 

Ramairez, J. F., valuable mate- 
rial for the Bancroft Library, 
312. 

Ramusio, remarks on open mid- 
continent sea, 527. 

Recall, the, operation of, 506; 
as applied to the judiciary, 
509-512; opposition to, 506; 
untenable attitude of Taft, 
510. 

Referendum, nature and opera- 
tions of, 506. 

Republic, moral decadence of, 
504. 

Republicanism, phases of, 284; 
an indefinite quantity, 286; 
what is it? 487. 

Roads, national and historic, 60; 
pathways of the plains, 64; 
Cumberland gap, 74. 

Rolph, J., Jr., elected mayor, 283 ; 
institutes important measures. 
491; efficiency and popularity, 
520. 

Roosevelt, T., secures Panama 
canal, 6-8; his great work, 
229-231; what the world owes 
him, 497: what California 
owes him, 498; ever one of the 
world's great men, 490, 503. 



560 



INDEX 



Routes overland, 67. 

Ruef, A., a university blossom 
out of season, 274; genius for 
civic debauchery. 240; his ca- 
reer, 245-6; some of his 
achievements, 501; silly senti- 
mentalism regarding him, 340. 



Sacramento, as seen in '40, 130. 

Salt Lake valley, occupied by the 
Mormons, 39-40. 

San Diego, as seen in '40, 127; 
c-ivif individualism, L59; fa- 
ther Norton and the brothers 
Kimball, 159-60. 

San Francisco, site, 172; first 
inhabitants, 173; sectional ri- 
valry, the name, 173; a metro- 
politan city, 455; coming of 
the friars, 456; model climate, 
458 ; fires of '49 and '50, 459 ; 
as seen in '49, 128, 131; flush 
times traffic, 102; houses and 
streets, 104; living expenses, 
103; suffering, 104; catas- 
trophe of 1906 compared, 105; 
society, 103; the cholera, 105; 
steamer day, 126; the Hounds 
and Regulators, 180-1; regen- 
eration, 208; in the early 
fifties, typical gambling house, 
124; surveys and naming of 
streets, 177; Bartlett, alcalde 
and map maker, newspapers, 
175; sickness, 460; the great 
fire of 1906, 461; "Paris in 
America," 462; rehabilitation, 
463; hard times, 464; failures, 
465; manufactures, 470; ad- 
vantages and opportunities for 
marketing, 470-2; labor con- 
ditions, 466; climate and food 



supply, 470; industries stran- 
gled by labor leaders, 479; an 
enslaved city, 480; the city 
and bay a hundred years 
hence, 473; influence of Pana- 
ma canal, 476; the city noth- 
ing without manufactures, 479- 
483. 

San Jos6, as seen in '49, 129. 

Santa Fe" trail, a historic high- 
way, 60. 

Savagism and civilization, 48-9; 
rights and wrongs of, 138-41. 

Schmitz, E., labor leader and 

mayor, 245. 
Scott, Dr., escapade, 207. 
Scott, T., projected railway to 

San Diego, 148. 

Seattle, the old chief's people, 
305. 

Seward, W. H., checks French in- 
tervention, 289-91. 

Shipping at San Francisco bay 
in '49, 93; colonial, 2; ship 
subsidy, 17. 

Significance of the Panama canal, 
521-547; to some it has no 
significance, 526. 

Slavery in the colonies, 54. 

Smith, Joseph, founder of Mor- 
monism, 29-35; polygamy or- 
dered, 36-7 ; death, 37. 

Society, colonial, 55; vagaries of, 
414; decadence of the idle rich, 
415; kings and princesses, 416; 
sham and conventionalities, 
417; international marriages, 
wealth and display, 419-23; 
health conditions, 414; alco- 
holic parentage, 415; classes, 
416; origin of sham, 417; 



INDEX 



561 



slavery, 418; high and low so- 
ciety, 419; fashion, 418; gra- 
dations, 421; criminal class, 
422; standards of superiority, 
424; the climbers, 428; what 
constitutes the best society, 
430 ; smart and silly sets, 427 ; 
vice and virtue, 417; so-called 
good society, 430; interracial 
marriages, 420 ; the newly rich, 
424; gradations, 424; crim- 
inality, 425. 
Southern chivalry, misrule of, 

197. 
Southern Pacific railway, repris- 
als, 160; intimacy with the 
courts, 513. 
South sea bubble, 23. 
Specific contract law, 207. 
Spreckels, R., finances reform, 

246. 
Squier, E. G., historical collec- 
tion purchased for the Ban- 
croft Library, 312. 
Stanford, L., his dealings with 
his artist, 147; as a witness, 
245; his school of business 
ethics, 235; made himself sen- 
ator, 234-6. 
Steamboats, Fulton's invention, 
58; on the Mississippi, 62; 
first Atlantic and Pacific line, 
92; steam traffic in 1852, 122. 
Stockton, as seen in '49, 130. 
Sullivan, M. I., a worker for 

civic betterments, 490. 
Sutter, J. A., gold discovery, 90 ; 
character of, 90-1; ambition, 
91; purpose in coming to Cali- 
fornia, secures land, 91; lays 
out Sacramento city, 97; 
ruined by miners and squat- 



ters, 98; wealth and opportu- 
nity lost, 98. 

Taft, W. H., failure to fulfil his 
trust, 229; disappointment of 
his supporters, 294; his asso- 
ciates, 296; disgraceful elec- 
tioneering, his craze for hold- 
ing office, 295; unfaithful, un- 
reliable, and incompetent, 229- 
230. 
Taylor, E. P., good government 

mayor, 249. 
Tehuantepec, projected ship ca- 
nal, and Eads' ship railroad 
scheme, 538. 
Telegraph hill, for ballast, 126. 
Terry, D. S., as handled by the 
Vigilance Committee, 191 ; kills 
Broderick, 200; is killed by 
Judge Field's man, 263. 
Tevis, L., in the mines, 112. 
Throes of labor, 375-99. 
Tipping, blackmail fed by vanity 

and cowardice, 435. 
Torquemada, tells of river and 
strait of Anian, and city of 
Quivira, 531. 
Towns, birth of, 203. 
Trade, California, in '49, 102; 

trend of, 481. 
Transportation, earliest factor of 
progress, 94; a vital force, 
146. 

Union labor, in elections, 209; 

unionizing of labor a necessity, 

381. 
United States, construction of. 

1; ocean frontages, 2; attitude 



562 



INDEX 



in international affairs, 10-13; 
insane policy regarding the 
Chinese, 348; foreign miners' 
tax, 360. 

United States, position before the 
world, 213. 

Utah, settlement of, 39; the Mor- 
mons and the emigrants, 72. 

Utopian dreams and altruistic 
ideals, 18-41. 



Vaca, Cabeza de, journey over- 
land, 43. 

Vagaries of society, 414-435. 

Vallejo, M. O., flush with gold, 
102; offer of state capital, 173; 
historical collection, 309; se- 
cured by the Bancroft Library, 
310-11; Historia de California 
written as historical material 
for Mr. Bancroft, 311. 

Veniaminof, I., Aleut material 
for Mr. Bancroft, 313. 

Vigilance Committee, rise of jus- 
tice, 181-4; organization of, 
185; work accomplished, 186; 
organization of 1856, grand 
parade and disbandment, 186- 
188; deliverance by, 195. 



Virginian, the, characteristics of, 
157. 



Wages, the problem of labor, 386, 
396; per hour plan, 397; in 
U. S. and Europe, 480. 

War, now and then, 46-7; for 
the Union, 220; effect on Pa- 
cific railway, 232-4. 

Waste in education, 436-454. 

Wealth, increase of, 16; evil in- 
fluence of, 210; criminal pas- 
sion for, 217. 

Weber, C, founder of Stockton, 
107. 

Works, J. D., elected U. S. sena- 
tor, 500; on the recall of the 
judiciary, 509. 

Yerba Buena, cove and island, 

172; first inhabitants, 456. 
Young, Brigham, personality and 

conversion to Mormonism, 36; 

becomes head and guide, 38; 

in Utah, 39-41. 

Zinzendorf's Moravians, 25. 
Zuni, as first reported, 43. 






